Why Tendulkar’s tally of First-Class tons should rank over those who have scored more than him, except Bradman

With the solo effort in the first innings of the Irani Trophy, Sachin Tendulkar equalled Sunil Gavaskar’s Indian record of 81 First-Class hundreds. Arunabha Sengupta tries to estimate how many hundreds Tendulkar would have scored if he had played as many matches as the county cricketers of the bygone past.

With the solo effort in the first innings of the Irani Trophy, Sachin Tendulkar equalled Sunil Gavaskar’s Indian record of 81 First-Class hundreds. Arunabha Sengupta tries to estimate how many hundreds Tendulkar would have scored if he had played as many matches as the county cricketers of the bygone past.

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The first century was scored on his First-Class debut as a rosy cheeked 15-year old. The year was 1988.

Cold War had not yet thawed. Even as the Iron Curtain fluttered in the winds of change, Soviet Union stood firm having just begun the perestroika programme of economic restructuring. Germany was still divided by a man-made wall that ran across Berlin, manned by American and Soviet soldiers.

That day in 1988, the average age of the rest of the players involved in the ongoing Irani Cup was 2.33. Wasim Jaffer, the eldest, was ten. Four players were not born.

Twenty-four years have passed. Sachin Tendulkar has just completed 25,000 runs in First-Class cricket. More than 60% of them have been obtained at the highest level while engaged in Test matches. He has joined Sunil Gavaskar at the top of the table for the most number of First-Class centuries by an Indian batsman.

Gavaskar scored his 81 hundreds in 348 matches. Tendulkar got there in 45 less. What makes Tendulkar’s achievement even more commendable is that Gavaskar played 125 Test matches, and 223 non-Test First-class games. In contrast, Tendulkar has played 194 Tests and only 109 non-Test First-class matches. Gavaskar’s scored 34 hundreds in Tests, while has scored 51 thus far in Tests.

Player	M	100s	Tests	100s	Matches/ 100	%Test Matches	%Test hundreds
Sunil Gavaskar	348	81	125	34	4.30	35.92	41.98
Sachin Tendulkar	303	81	194	51	3.74	64.03	62.96

True, Tendulkar’s remarkable record has been reached without the benefit of the easier pastures of non-Test First-Cass matches. His time has been occupied elsewhere – scoring 18,000 more runs and 49 more hundreds in One-Day Internationals has the potential to clutter one’s calendar.

However, it leaves one wondering how many hundreds he would have managed if he had played a similar proportion of non-Test First-Class matches as the batsmen who head the list of First-Class centurions.

For example, if we consider the frequency of his hundred plus scores in non-Test First-Class matches and assume that he had played 223 non-Test First Class matches like Gavaskar, his estimated number of career hundreds amount to 112.

It is significant that the two Indians have played just a handful of county matches. Gavaskar appeared in 15 games for Somerset and scored two hundreds. Tendulkar represented Yorkshire 16 times and managed one. Most of the cricketers who lead the table of First-class centuries have had long county stints with a huge number of matches under their belts.

Among the 25 batsmen who managed a century of First-Class centuries, 21 are English. Three of four non-Englishmen, Viv Richards, Zaheer Abbas and Glenn Turner, spent a large part of their careers in the county circuit, playing 507, 459 and 455 First-Class matches in their respective careers. Only Don Bradman, with his monstrous appetite for hundreds, managed the feat without the help of a county career, though four rather long English tours did push things along.

However, what is significant is that none of the others in the 80-plus group comes remotely close to Tendulkar in the percentage of Test matches played and percentage of hundreds scored on the premier stage of Test cricket.

In the table below we have listed all the batsmen with 80-plus First-Class hundreds with the percentage of Test matches and Test hundreds.

In the last column we have tried to estimate the number of hundreds Tendulkar would have made if he had played as many non-Test First-Class matches as each batsman.

For example, from the first row we find out that Jack Hobbs scored 199 hundreds in 834 First-Class matches – including 61 Tests. If Tendulkar had played 773 First-Class matches apart from his 194 Tests, he would have scored 264 hundreds given the rate of his 100 plus scores. This figure has been captured in the last column.

In this list as well, as in most of the areas of batsmanship, only one batsman upstages him – Don Bradman.

Leader board of First-Class centuries: the last column denotes the estimated number of hundreds Tendulkar would have scored if he had played the same number of non-Test First-Class matches as each batsman in the list.

 

Player	Span	FC Matches	FC 100s	Tests	Test 100s	% Tests	%Test 100s	Estimated 100s of Tendulkar
JB Hobbs	1905-1934	834	199	61	15	7.31	7.54	264
EH Hendren	1907-1937	833	170	51	7	6.12	4.12	266
WR Hammond	1920-1951	634	167	85	22	13.41	13.17	202
CP Mead	1905-1936	814	153	17	4	2.09	2.61	270
G Boycott	1962-1986	609	151	108	22	17.73	14.57	189
H Sutcliffe	1919-1945	754	151	54	16	7.16	10.60	244
FE Woolley	1906-1938	978	145	64	5	6.54	3.45	303
GA Hick	1983-2008	526	136	65	6	12.36	4.41	178
L Hutton	1934-1955	513	129	79	19	15.40	14.73	170
GA Gooch	1973-2000	581	128	118	20	20.31	15.63	178
WG Grace	1865-1908	870	124	22	2	2.53	1.61	284
DCS Compton	1936-1964	515	123	78	17	15.15	13.82	171
TW Graveney	1948-1972	732	122	79	11	10.79	9.02	231
DG Bradman	1927-1949	234	117	52	29	22.22	24.79	101
MR Ramprakash	1987-2012	461	114	52	2	11.28	1.75	164
IVA Richards	1971-1993	507	114	121	24	23.87	21.05	157
Zaheer Abbas	1965-1987	459	108	78	12	16.99	11.11	156
A Sandham	1911-1937	643	107	14	2	2.18	1.87	224
MC Cowdrey	1950-1976	692	107	114	22	16.47	20.56	210
TW Hayward	1893-1914	712	104	35	3	4.92	2.88	237
GM Turner	1964-1983	455	103	41	7	9.01	6.80	165
JH Edrich	1956-1978	564	103	77	12	13.65	11.65	185
LEG Ames	1926-1951	593	102	47	8	7.93	7.84	201
GE Tyldesley	1909-1936	648	102	14	3	2.16	2.94	225
DL Amiss	1960-1987	658	102	50	11	7.60	10.78	218
JW Hearne	1909-1936	647	96	24	1	3.71	1.04	222
CB Fry	1892-1922	394	94	26	2	6.60	2.13	152
MW Gatting	1975-1998	551	94	79	10	14.34	10.64	181
CG Greenidge	1970-1992	523	92	108	19	20.65	20.65	165
AJ Lamb	1972-1995	467	89	79	14	16.92	15.73	158
AI Kallicharran	1966-1990	505	87	66	12	13.07	13.79	172
GS Sobers	1952-1974	383	86	93	26	24.28	30.23	131
JL Langer	1991-2009	360	86	105	23	29.17	26.74	121
RB Kanhai	1954-1977	421	86	79	15	18.76	17.44	145
WJ Edrich	1934-1958	571	86	39	6	6.83	6.98	197
JT Tyldesley	1895-1923	608	86	31	4	5.10	4.65	210
PBH May	1950-1963	388	85	66	13	17.01	15.29	140
RES Wyatt	1923-1951	739	85	40	2	5.41	2.35	243
J Hardstaff jnr	1930-1955	517	83	23	4	4.45	4.82	187
DS Lehmann	1987-2007	284	82	27	5	9.51	6.10	122
SM Gavaskar	1966-1987	348	81	125	34	35.92	41.98	112
ME Waugh	1985-2004	368	81	128	20	34.78	24.69	117
SR Tendulkar	1988-2013	303	81	194	51	64.03	62.96	81
BA Richards	1964-1983	339	80	4	2	1.18	2.50	143
Javed Miandad	1973-1994	402	80	124	23	30.85	28.75	128
M Leyland	1920-1947	686	80	41	9	5.98	11.25	229

 

(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)

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