Younis Khan: First Pakistani and 12th overall to score a century against all 9 Test nations

Younis Khan scored his maiden Test century against Australia to complete the feat of having a century against every Test-playing nation. Bharath Seervi lists down the other players who emulated the feat and related facts.

Pakistan middle-order batsman Younis Khan brought up his 25th Test century on the first day of the opening Test against Australia at Dubai. This was his first Test century against the Aussies in the seven meetings. His previous best score against them was 87 in the Boxing Day Test of 2004 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. He became the first batsman from Pakistan to complete Test centuries against all the nine teams from 9 Test playing nations.

Younis Khan’s 25 Test centuries include seven against Sri Lanka, five against India, four against South Africa, two each against Bangladesh, England and West Indies, and one each against Zimbabwe, New Zealand and Australia.

Younis Khan’s Test centuries – opposition wise

Batsmen scoring Test centuries against all the other 9 Test playing nations

Younis Khan is the 12th batsman in cricketing history to have scored a century against all other nine Test playing nations. The first batsman to achieve this feat was Gary Kirsten from South Africa in October 2002. Many batsmen were waiting for playing against Bangladesh. Steve Waugh got to the milestone in 2003 while Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid achieved this in consecutive Tests against Bangladesh in 2004.

Marvan Atapattu completed his set in 2005 while Brian Lara did so in a month later the same year. Australians Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting completed their set of centuries in the same Test match but in different innings against Bangladesh in 2006. Kumar Sangakkara did it in 2007 and his partner Mahela Jayawardene in 2009. Last to do it before Younis Khan was Jacques Kallis in 2012. Below is the complete list.

Number of innings to get to the milestone

Kumar Sangakkara took only 114 innings to complete the milestone. Adam Gilchrist got to it in least number of days (2349). Jacques Kallis took the most number of innings (254) while Steve Waugh took the most number of days (6414).

Matthew Hayden scored centuries against nine teams, which included World XI but not Bangladesh. Ian Bell and Alastair Cook of England have scored centuries against eight Test teams. Zimbabwe is the only team left for them. England played its last Test against Zimbabwe in 2003 and hence, Bell and Cook have not played (and have no hopes of playing either) against them.

(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SeerviBharath and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SeerviCricket)