View: In T20s, hundred isn’t worth hundred

He should have got a hundred. At least, he should have got a hundred, she said, when Ryan Rickleton picked out Josh Inglis at cover. Rickleton had made 83 from only 32 balls and set the Mumbai Indians up perfectly in their chase of 229 when he was dismissed. Rohit Sharma, at the other end, acknowledged as much, with an elder brotherly punch to the shoulder as a dejected Rickleton walked back to the dugout.

Rohit was not fussed because he’s been there and done that, scoring tall hundreds in all formats, but also narrowly missing out enough times. Rohit was also not bothered because the team’s goal was being met. And he would have known that 3 of the 12 hundreds scored in this season of the IPL have been by the Mumbai Indians. And yet they sit joint last in the points table.

No other team has even two centurions, although Chennai has two hundreds from Sanju Samson. Of the times batsmen have reached three figures this season, half have been in losing causes. Including KL Rahul’s unbeaten 152. The most consistently strong team in the competition, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, is the only team without a single hundred; Virat Kohli’s 81 being their highest. Exactly what is it about the century, then?


For starters, it has been the gold standard in batting pretty much since time began. On the first day of the first Test match, in the 1876-87 season, Australia’s Charles Bannerman scored a century against the country of his birth. Bannerman retired hurt on 165 with a hand injury, but more remarkable than being the first centurion, his innings contributed 67.3% of the team’s total, a record that still stands.

To score a century, in Test cricket, was not merely a statistical achievement; it was the ultimate badge of belonging at the highest level. Which is why, more than 200 years later, Sachin Tendulkar, one of the greatest to have played the game, found himself caught in a global wave of anticipation as he neared 100 international hundreds. The wait was longer than Tendulkar would have liked, and the constant question of when the milestone would come dogged him at press conferences, in hotel lobbies, during doctor appointments, and everywhere in between. The mark was somewhat manufactured, given that it hardly makes sense to add centuries across formats, but it was huge nevertheless, given how difficult it would be for anyone else to emulate.

Then there is that reason why cricket obsesses over centuries. Sir Don Bradman, a statistical freak if there ever was one, the best batsman the game has seen, ended his career with a duck that left his average tantalisingly at 99.94. The man closest to batting perfection had been denied by the cricket gods. No other batsman with a significant body of work has come close to this number. Of completed careers of at least 20 matches, Australia’s Adam Voges is a highly unlikely second best, at 61.87 and this was bolstered hugely by scores of 269*, 106* and 239 in the last few Tests before he called it quits.

Today, in T20 cricket, the century has almost been rendered irrelevant. In Tests and 50-over cricket to a large extent, a batsman scoring a hundred meant he was at the crease long enough to make a difference to his team. In T20 cricket, a batsman spending time at the crease is not a positive metric in itself. Where the margins are tiny, and every ball is an opportunity to maximise the team’s scoring potential, any slowing down to safely secure a landmark is a missed opportunity.

In a contest where strike rates speak loudest, a batsman altering his play in the slightest when nearing a hundred is viewed as a sign of weakness. In India’s World Cup triumph, Sanju had scores of 97*, 89 and 89 in a virtual quarterfinal, the semi-final and the final and was the Player of the Tournament. At one point, when asked about missing two hundreds, Sanju said: “Bhai, I haven’t missed two hundreds, I’ve made 97 and 89.”

From time immemorial, batsmen have insisted that it is not individual records but the team’s cause that mattered the most, and not always completely honestly. What T20 cricket has done is show players that this is the only way to play the game in the quest for victory at the exclusion of all else.

But this does not mean the century is meaningless. It is the one metric that cuts across culture, geography, ethnicity ... and is indisputably recognised as excellence. It is also a moment when the game pauses: no matter how it is poised, the batsman takes off his helmet and acknowledges the crowd. In doing so, the two become one, sharing an elusive, fleeting intimacy. In that moment, nothing else matters because the batsman got a hundred, at least.

This article is updated upto DC vs KKR game on Friday