Wasim Jaffer scores 50th First-Class hundred; joins the pantheon of the greats

Wasim Jaffer became the seventh Indian to score 50 First-Class hundreds. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at a milestone that went almost unnoticed.

 

 

Wasim Jaffer became the seventh Indian to score 50 First-Class hundreds. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at a milestone that went almost unnoticed.

 

With the Indian team about to leave for one of the toughest tours available in international cricket Ranji Trophy has taken a backseat. As a result almost no one noticed Wasim Jaffer being the seventh Indian to reach 50th First-Class hundreds against a nondescript Vidarbha.

 

What makes Jaffer’s feat so special? With batsmen of the stature of Andy Sandham and Mark Ramprakash having crossed the magical figure of a hundred First-Class hundreds, fifty seems to be a rather paltry number.

 

What we must remember, however, is the fact that given its structure the English County Championship allows cricketers to play more First-Class matches per season than their counterparts all over the world. The Ranji Trophy, for example, used to be played in a knock-out format in its earlier stages, which meant that some players had to be content with one First-Class match per season.

 

If we consider only batsmen who have never played Championship Jaffer is not as far behind. In fact, if we do not include Don Bradman (who should anyway be excluded for any kind of cricket analysis) the next man on the list is Neil Harvey, who has scored only 17 hundreds more than Jaffer.

 

50 First-Class hundreds; never played for an English county
Batsman	M	I	NO	R	HS	Ave	100s
Don Bradman	234	338	43	28,067	452*	95.14	117
Neil Harvey	306	461	35	21,699	231*	50.94	67
Graeme Pollock	262	437	54	20,940	274	54.67	64
Vijay Hazare	238	367	46	18,740	316*	58.38	60
Bob Simpson	257	436	62	21,029	359	56.23	60
Lindsay Hassett	216	322	32	16,890	232	58.24	59
Hanif Mohammad	238	370	44	17,059	499	52.33	55
Dilip Vengsarkar	260	390	52	17,868	284	52.86	55
Warren Bardsley	250	376	35	17,031	264	49.94	53
Shafiq Ahmed	266	450	58	19,572	217*	49.93	53
Bill Lawry	249	417	49	18,734	266	50.91	50
Wasim Jaffer	215	355	35	16,451	314*	51.41	50
Note: Jaffer’s numbers are as of November 28, 2013

As stated above Jaffer became the seventh Indian to reach the fifty First-Class hundred mark. Of the other six Vijay Hazare was the only one who played cricket in an era when India’s exposure to international cricket was limited, and thanks to World War II he could not make his debut before he had turned 30.

 

Other than Hazare, however, the other five had all gone on to play over a hundred Tests (okay, make that 99). It did not stop at that: at least a third of everyone’s First-Class matches have been Tests. Over half of Rahul Dravid’s First-Class appearances came in Tests, whereas in Sachin Tendulkar’s case the count has been close to 65%.

 

Indians with 50 First-Class hundreds
Batsman	M (FC)	I	NO	R	HS	Ave	100s	Tests	Tests/FC
Sunil Gavaskar	348	563	61	25,834	340	51.46	81	125	35.9%
Sachin Tendulkar	310	490	51	25,396	248*	57.85	81	200	64.5%
Rahul Dravid	298	497	67	23,794	270	55.33	68	163	54.7%
Vijay Hazare	238	367	46	18,740	316*	58.38	60	30	12.6%
Dilip Vengsarkar	260	390	52	17,868	284	52.86	55	116	44.6%
Mohammad Azharuddin	229	343	38	15,855	226	51.98	54	99	43.2%
Wasim Jaffer	215	355	35	16,451	314*	51.41	50	31	14.4%
Note: Jaffer’s numbers are as of November 28, 2013

 

Of course, Jaffer had gone past Ajay Sharma’s tally of 31 Ranji Trophy hundreds last season. With 34 hundreds he is well clear of Amol Muzumdar, his nearest contender among contemporaries.

 

Jaffer is not even 36, and probably has at least four or five years under his belt. He has scored approximately at the rate of three hundreds a season, which means that he should be looking at the 60-mark before he hangs up his boots.

 

Jaffer should, under ideal circumstances, have won a berth on the upcoming tour of South Africa (he had, after all, top-scored with 116 in the last Test he had played on South African soil — against Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini, and Shaun Pollock), but given the fact that even the in-form Gautam Gambhir has been overlooked one should perhaps not expect such decisions.

 

While we will have to remain content with watching Jaffer in only Indian domestic cricket this season, what we can do is take a trip down the memory lane and re-live Jaffer’s 50 First-Class tons:

First-Class hundreds of Wasim Jaffer
No	Score	For	Against	Date
1	314*	Mumbai	Saurashtra	Nov 4, 1996
2	106	Mumbai	Uttar Pradesh	Feb 7, 1997
3	133	West Zone	South Zone	Dec 9, 1997
4	180	Mumbai	Gujarat	Nov 23, 1998
5	173*	West Zone	North Zone	Dec 17, 1999
6	173	Mumbai	Gujarat	Dec 27, 1999
7	178	Mumbai	Baroda	Nov 29, 2001
8	139	Mumbai	Saurashtra	Jan 5, 2002
9	122	West Zone	Central Zone	Mar 12, 2002
10	103*	West Zone	Central Zone	Mar 12, 2002
11	116	Rest of India	Railways	Oct 29, 2002
12	106	Mumbai	Delhi	Nov 17, 2002
13	117	Mumbai	Railways	Dec 19, 2002
14	102*	Elite Group B	Elite Group C	Mar 27, 2003
15	218	India A	Warwickshire	July 30, 2003
16	117*	Mumbai	Delhi	Nov 15, 2003
17	143	Mumbai	Andhra	Dec 1, 2003
18	133	Mumbai	Tamil Nadu	Mar 26, 2004
19	157	Mumbai	Railways	Nov 7, 2004
20	162	Mumbai	Bengal	Dec 4, 2004
21	122	Mumbai	Delhi	Dec 31, 2004
22	133	West Zone	South Zone	Oct 20, 2005
23	267	Mumbai	Delhi	Nov 23, 2005
24	162	Mumbai	Tamil Nadu	Dec 25, 2005
25	100	India	England	Mar 1, 2006
26	212	India	West Indies	Jun 2, 2006
27	129	West Zone	Sri Lanka A	Oct 27, 2006
28	116	India	South Africa	Jan 2, 2007
29	112	Mumbai	Bengal	Feb 2, 2007
30	138*	India	Bangladesh	May 25, 2007
31	202	India	Pakistan	Nov 30, 2007
32	151	West Zone	England Lions	Feb 11, 2008
33	172	Mumbai	Gujarat	Nov 10, 2008
34	256	Mumbai	Hyderabad	Dec 2, 2008
35	108	Mumbai	Himachal Pradesh	Dec 26, 2008
36	301	Mumbai	Saurashtra	Jan 4, 2009
37	165*	Mumbai	Orissa	Nov 10, 2009
38	107*	Mumbai	Hyderabad	Decr 1, 2009
39	141	Mumbai	Tamil Nadu	Dec 8, 2009
40	138	Mumbai	Saurashtra	Nov 1, 2010
41	103*	Mumbai	Saurashtra	Nov 1, 2010
42	104*	Mumbai	Bengal	Nov 10, 2010
43	169*	Mumbai	Gujarat	Dec 1, 2010
44	110*	Mumbai	Saurashtra	Dec 6, 2011
45	171	Mumbai	Gujarat	Dec 29, 2012
46	150	Mumbai	Baroda	Jan 6, 2013
47	132	Mumbai	Saurashtra	Jan 26, 2013
48	101*	Mumbai	Rest of India	Feb 6, 2013
49	111	Mumbai	Punjab	Nov 7, 2013
50	133*	Mumbai	Vidarbha	Nov 28, 2013
The last hundred involves score only up to November 28, 2013

 

(Abhishek Mukherjee is a cricket historian and Senior Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He generally looks upon life as a journey involving two components – cricket and literature – though not as disjoint elements. A passionate follower of the history of the sport with an insatiable appetite for trivia and anecdotes, he has also a steady love affair with the incredible assortment of numbers that cricket has to offer. He also thinks he can bowl decent leg-breaks in street cricket, and blogs at http://ovshake.blogspot.in. He can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ovshake42)

• 
• 
•