What is So Great about Scoring a Century in a Cricket Test Match?

 What is So Great about Scoring a Century in a Cricket Test Match?

Yes, asking most sincerely, in all contexts.

The captain of the English team said much the same thing, in a very specific context though.

Ben Stokes seems to have said, referring to the drawn test match at Old Trafford between England and India, “But I don’t think there would have been too much more satisfaction from walking off 100 not out, getting your team out of a tricky situation, than walking off 100 at 80, 90 not out.”

Should someone look through the history of cricket, I am sure he (add she/it, if you so feel) would find dozens of situations when the match dragged on merely to accommodate some batsman scoring a century. But, that is not a sound argument as it is episodic, but what follows is.

What is hundred but merely a number, an integer, to be specific; and, you get to hundred by merely adding one to its immediately preceding neighbour; 100 = 99 + 1. If an English batsman were to get out at only 99, the same Stokes would have bemoaned that batsman missing a century. I dare anyone, including Stokes himself, on this. Therefore, before advocating the downgrade of the so-called “achievement” of a batsman scoring a century, one should downgrade century itself as a milestone. Are you ready, Stokes?

Looking at the importance of scoring a century, one has to discard the team perspective−which is what Stokes evoked−and adopt the individual’s perspective. Unless sports writers, broadcasters and the myriad hangers-on are ready to say, “It was good to have had you here this long. But now that we can accommodate more than two digits on the screen (TV, mobile phones (in the landscape orientation), stadium score boards etc.), we doubt you are welcome here. Do not crowd statistics,” as they bid farewell to celebrating centuries, none, Stokes included, can complain about Sundar and Jadeja batting to hundred. Whatever one may say, these batsmen did indeed risk getting out without tasting the sweet, yet hard-earned “draw” in the middle.

Stokes failed in exhibiting empathy; of course, admittedly no friend of competitive sports. More than that, the English team complaining about the BCCI team not accepting the offer most definitely had an ulterior motive, to get another half hour rest for its bowlers. That too is not very sportsman like, wouldn’t you say, Stokes?

Well, Sundar and Jadeja too would have enjoyed an additional half hour of rest, not forgetting Jasprit Bumrah! What is good for the goose is good for the gander!

Raghuram Ekambaram