For a cricketer to score a

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

(100 runs or more) on his

Test match Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

debut is considered a notable achievement, and as of December 2022, it has been accomplished 113 times by 111 players. Two of those players,

Lawrence Rowe Lawrence George Rowe (born 8 January 1949) is a former West Indian cricketer. A stylish top order batsman, he also played for Jamaica and Derbyshire in his cricketing career. Rowe was later named as one of Jamaica's top five cricketers of the 2 ...

and

Yasir Hameed Yasir Hameed Qureshi (Urdu: یاسر حمید قریشی) (born 28 February 1978) is a former Pakistani cricketer, who played 25 Tests and 56 ODIs for Pakistan. He scored two centuries on his Test debut against Bangladesh, becoming only the sec ...

, have scored centuries in both innings of their debut match. Players representing 11 of the Test-playing nations (all except

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

) have scored centuries on Test debut. In the first Test match played, between

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in March 1877,

Charles Bannerman Charles Bannerman (3 July 1851 – 20 August 1930) was an English-born Australian cricketer. A right-handed batsman, he represented Australia in three Test matches between 1877 and 1879. At the domestic level, he played for the New South Wa ...

became the first player to score a century in Test cricket. In a match in which no other player scored more than 20 runs in either innings for Australia, Bannerman scored 165

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

. That score remained the highest on debut until R. E. Foster scored 287 for England against Australia in 1903. Foster's innings was the highest score in Test cricket until 1930, and remains the highest score amongst Test debutants. His double-century is one of seven made on Test debut, the other six were scored by

Brendon Kuruppu Don Sardha Brendon Priyantha Kuruppu (born 5 January 1962) is a former Sri Lankan wicket-keeper and opening batsman. He is one of few batsmen in the world to score a double century on debut. Brendon was often played in ODIs, as he played 54 ...

Mathew Sinclair Mathew Stuart Sinclair (born 9 November 1975) is an Australian-born New Zealand cricketer. He is a right-handed middle order batsman who has also opened the innings. He holds the equal world record for the highest Test score (214) by a number t ...

Jacques Rudolph Jacobus Andries "Jacques" Rudolph (born 4 May 1981) is a former South African cricketer who played for Glamorgan and in South Africa with Titans. He attended Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool, a popular and renowned public school located in Pretoria. ...

Kyle Mayers Kyle Rico Mayers (born 8 September 1992) is a Barbadian cricketer. He plays international cricket for West Indies cricket team in all formats. He was also in the West Indies under-19 squad for the 2012 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup. In February ...

and

Devon Conway Devon Philip Conway (born 8 July 1991) is a South African born New Zealand cricketer who plays for the New Zealand cricket team. In March 2020, the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed that Conway would be eligible to play for New Zealan ...

. Nine players (

Bill Ponsford William Harold Ponsford MBE (19 October 1900 – 6 April 1991) was an Australian cricketer. Usually playing as an opening batsman, he formed a successful and long-lived partnership opening the batting for Victoria and Australia with Bill ...

Doug Walters Kevin Douglas Walters (born 21 December 1945) is a former Australian cricketer. He was known as an attacking batsman, a useful part-time bowler, and also as a typical ocker. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA. ...

Alvin Kallicharran Alvin Isaac Kallicharran (born 21 March 1949) is a former Indo-Guyanese cricketer of Tamil origin who played Test cricket for the West Indies between 1972 and 1981 as a left-handed batsman and right-arm off spinner. Kallicharran was born i ...

Mohammad Azharuddin Mohammad Azharuddin (born 8 February 1963) is an Indian politician and a former international cricketer and former captain of India national cricket team. He is the working president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee and was the Memb ...

Greg Blewett Gregory Scott Blewett (born 29 October 1971) is an Australian international retired cricketer who played Test cricket and One-Day Internationals between 1995 and 2000. Cricket career The son of Bob Blewett who represented South Australia in ...

Sourav Ganguly Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (; natively spelled as Gangopadhyay; born 8 July 1972), affectionately known as Dada (meaning ''"elder brother"'' in Bengali), is an Indian cricket administrator, commentator and former national cricket team captain w ...

Rohit Sharma Rohit Gurunath Sharma (born 30 April 1987) is an Indian international cricketer and the current captain of the Indian cricket team. Widely considered as one of the best opening batter of all time, he plays as a right-handed batsman for Mumbai ...

James Neesham James Douglas Sheahan Neesham (born 17 September 1990), better known as Jimmy Neesham, is a New Zealand international cricketer who has played for New Zealand cricket team. He currently plays in various T20 leagues around the globe as an All-ro ...

, and Abid Ali) went on to make centuries in the second test as well. Mohammad Azharuddin is the only player to score centuries in his first three tests. When he scored his debut hundred,

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

Mohammad Ashraful Mohammad Ashraful ( bn, মোহাম্মদ আশরাফুল; born 7 July 1984) is a Bangladeshi cricketer, who has represented the Bangladesh national cricket team, captaining the team in all formats of the game. A top-order batsman ...

became the youngest player to score a century in Test cricket, at the age of 17 years and 61 days.

Adam Voges Adam Charles Voges (, born 4 October 1979) is an Australian cricket coach and former cricketer who played for the Australian national team at Test, One Day International (ODI), and Twenty20 International (T20I) level, and also captained Weste ...

is the oldest player to have done so on debut, aged 35 years and 243 days when he scored 130 not out for Australia against the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

in June 2015. The 100th century on Test debut was by South African Stiaan van Zyl, who scored 101* against the West Indies in Centurion in December 2014, whilst the 100th player to score a century on Test debut was his compatriot

Stephen Cook Stephen Arthur Cook (born December 14, 1939) is an American-Canadian computer scientist and mathematician who has made significant contributions to the fields of complexity theory and proof complexity. He is a university professor at the Unive ...

, who scored 115 against England at the same ground in 2016. David Hopps asked "Why is it that 100 Test batsmen, previously unchosen, have now trodden this path?" He notes, "There is often an advantage that bowlers have had no time to explore their deficiencies, but most influential of all must be the hunger that runs through their veins."

Key

Test centuries on debut

Notes

References