Sachin Tendulkar on the threshold of another monstrous record

 As Sachin Tendulkar makes a welcome return to Ranji Trophy, he stands on the threshold of yet another milestone – highest First-class hundreds by an Indian. Arunabha Sengupta analyses the numbers to discover the further facets of greatness in the master’s achievements. 
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It may sound positively monotonous after a 23 year journey littered with milestones, but Sachin Tendulkar is on the verge of yet another record. And this, yet again, has to do with centuries.
 
In international cricket Tendulkar is already far ahead of any other man in the history of the game in terms of centuries. He stands head and shoulders above the rest in Test cricket, and, at least waist above in One-Day Internationals. By a simple corollary, the total number of international hundreds also belongs to him – and this total reached a century of its own after a prolonged wait.
 
However, as the master batsman walks back into the long neglected arena of Ranji Trophy, he finds himself just three short of the national record for the highest number of First-class centuries. Sunil Gavaskar finished his illustrious career with 81 from 348 matches. Tendulkar’s tally currently reads 78 from 294 outings.
 
The English monopoly
 
The record for First-class cricket centuries has traditionally been an English monopoly. With the gamut of county cricket that used to be played, it is hardly surprising that most of the leaders on the all time list are from England.
 
Jack Hobbs heads the pack with a mindboggling 199 hundreds from as many 834 matches! WG Grace got 124 in 870.  The county season saw numerous teams take on each other more than once every year till not long back.

Hence, among the 25 batsmen who managed a century of First-class centuries, 21 are English. Of the four others, Viv Richards, Zaheer Abbas and Glenn Turner spent a large part of their careers in the county circuit, playing 507, 459 and 455 First-class matches in their respective careers.
 
Of course, the one remaining batsman in the list got there because of a rather incurable habit of scoring hundreds. The great Don Bradman managed 117 in his career, in just 295 matches.
 
The great Indian batting leaders
 
Among the Indians, who play distinctly less First-class cricket than those engaged in the county game, there are seven who have scored more than 50 hundreds.
 
Unsurprisingly, these seven names would be on most lists of great Indian batsmen.
 

Indian batsmen with more than 50 First-class centuries

 

Batsman	M	Inn	Runs	Ave	100s	50s	# Inn/FC 100s	# Inn/FC 50+ scores
SM Gavaskar	348	563	25834	51.46	81	105	6.95	3.03
SR Tendulkar	294	467	24452	58.35	78	111	5.99	2.47
RS Dravid	298	497	23794	55.33	68	117	7.31	2.69
VS Hazare	238	367	18740	58.38	60	73	6.12	2.76
DB Vengsarkar	260	390	17868	52.86	55	87	7.09	2.75
M Azharuddin	229	343	15855	51.98	54	74	6.35	2.68
VVS Laxman	265	433	19520	51.5	54	97	8.02	2.87

 

As mentioned, Tendulkar is just three away from Gavaskar’s record, and has played 54 matches less than the original Little Master.
 
A closer scrutiny of the numbers reveals further differentiators between him and the other men on the list.
 
In spite of spending most of his career away from the vastly easier arena of First-class cricket, more often engaged in battling the more lethal bowlers of Test cricket, Tendulkar is still ahead in a number of areas.
 
A monstrous 65.38% of his 78 First-class hundreds have come in Test matches.
 
And even though he has played far less non-Test First-class matches than the other Indian batsmen in the list, Tendulkar still ends up being way more frequent in scoring centuries (one in every 5.99 First-class innings) and fifties (one in every 2.47 First-class innings).
 
These are further signs of his unwavering quality and consistency at the highest level.
 

The leading Indian batsmen split into Tests and Non-Test First-class matches

 

Batsman	Tests	Non Test FC	Test 100s	Non-Test 100s	% 100 in Tests	# Inn/ Test 100	#Inn/ Non-Test FC 100	# Inn/ Test 50+	#Inn/ Non-Test FC 50+
SM Gavaskar	123	265	34	47	40.74	6.29	7.43	2.71	2.71
SR Tendulkar	190	104	51	27	65.38	6.16	5.67	2.71	2.10
RS Dravid	163	135	36	32	52.94	7.94	6.59	2.89	2.45
VS Hazare	30	178	7	53	11.67	7.43	5.94	3.25	2.69
DB Vengsarkar	117	143	17	38	30.91	10.88	5.39	3.56	2.28
M Azharuddin	99	130	22	32	40.74	6.68	6.13	3.42	2.31
VVS Laxman	433	54	17	37	31.48	13.24	5.62	3.08	2.67

 
(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)