Alastair Cook accomplished a rare phenomenon on Monday while playing against India. Not many batsmen in the history of cricket have been able to do what Cook did. Cook now has joined a rare list of players of scoring a century on debut as well as last Test match of their Test careers. This list is so rare that only 4 other players are on their list, Cook happens to be 5th.
Bill Ponsford
One of the features of Ponsford’s career was his ‘hundreds’. He scored 2 hundreds in each of his first 2 Tests, the next 10 did not yield any, the next 4 saw 3 more; he went without a hundred for another 12 Tests before signing off with 2 in his last 2 Tests.
Reggie Duff
Reggie Duff made a sensational Test debut against England at Melbourne in 1901-02 when he became the second to score a Test hundred, and only the third Australian to score a century on debut. He also became the second cricketer to score 100 in his last test.
Greg Chappell
Century on debut, century on retirement. Chappell was undoubtedly a skilled batsman of his generation. Even though he was well established before retirement, his numbers are actually better post 1976. He scored 4233 runs including three double centuries at an average of 55.
Mohammad Azharuddin
Azharuddin started off his international career with a bang when he scored a century on his Test debut against England in 1984 at Eden Gardens Calcutta. He went on to score centuries in the next 2 Tests as well. In his last test match Azhar scored a century against South Africa.
Alastair Cook
This guy needs no introduction, he is the highest run scorer for England, he has scored more than 30 Test centuries and he is also among the players who have scored centuries in their first and last Test matches.
