Cheteshwar Pujara’s 100th Test: How the Indian players fared in their milestone match

Cheteshwar Pujara scored the winning run against Australia in Delhi on Sunday to end his 100th Test match. Pujara, who remained unbeaten on 31 in the second innings, became only the second player after Ricky Ponting to score the winning run in his 100th Test match. But the Saurashtra batsman also scored a duck in the first innings, becoming the seventh international player and second Indian after Dilip Vengsarkar to register this unwanted score in his 100th Test.

Batting greats Allan Border, Mark Taylor, Stephen Fleming, Alastair Cook and Brendon McCullum also registered a duck in their 100th Test.

How does Pujara stack up against other Indian ‘centurions’?

Before the start of the first day, Sunil Gavaskar felicitated Pujara and expressed hope that he would become the first Indian to score a century in his 100th Test. Alas, Pujara missed out on 100 in the first innings!

Gavaskar, in fact, was the first Indian to reach the milestone in October 1984 against Pakistan in Lahore. He scored 48 and 37 in the match which ended in a boring draw.

Vengsarkar scored a duck – the first player to record this dubious record – and scored 25 in his 100th Test against New Zealand in Mumbai.

All-rounder Kapil Dev played his 100th Test in November 1989 against Pakistan. He took seven wickets, scored a half-century (55) and became the only Indian to win the player of the match award in his 100th Test.

Tendulkar, who made his debut in Dev’s 100th Test, was the fourth Indian to reach the milestone. Playing against England at The Oval in September 2002, Tendulkar scored 54 and added some valuable runs with Rahul Dravid, who scored 217 runs.

Anil Kumble then achieved the historic feat against Sri Lanka in December 2005. He took five wickets in the second innings to help India win the match by 259 runs.

Three months later, Dravid played his 100th Test against England in Mumbai. Dravid scored 52 and 9 as India lost the Test by 212 runs.

Sourav Ganguly, who made his debut with Dravid in 1996, scored 43 and 40 in his 100th Test, which he played against Australia in Melbourne in December 2007. India lost that Test by 337 runs – among the worst ever defeats.

Less than 11 months later, VVS Laxman became the eighth player to achieve the feat by playing his 100th Test against Australia in Nagpur. He scored 64 and 4 as India won the match by 172 runs. Incidentally, this was also Ganguly’s last Test.

Four years later, Virender Sehwag played his 100th Test against England in Mumbai. The flamboyant opener scored 30 and 9 in two innings as England won the match by 10 wickets.

Harbhajan Singh and Ishant Sharma – both specialist bowlers – were the next to reach the milestone in 2013 and 2021 respectively. However, both his performances went unnoticed.

His teammate Virat Kohli played his 100th Test against Sri Lanka in Mohali last year. He scored 45 in the first innings as India beat the visitors by an innings and 222 runs.

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