Stats tell us batters have less reason to be anxious in the 90s than common lore suggests, though the pain and fear of falling short is all too real
If you’ve ever been lucky enough to score a century you’ll know how seismic a moment it is when you finally get over the line. Some play the game for a lifetime and never make one, the three-figured kingdom for ever out of reach, a promised land they are destined never to enter. Yet cricket lures you back like a devilish lover. You just can’t quit it. Next time might be your time. It could be you. Why not?
In cricket the century is the hallmark of individual success for a batter, the team sport unique in the way that it lauds personal milestones. The Test Match Special statistician Andy Zaltzman says that a century “carves an immutable notch in a player’s history and, at the highest level, an eternal legacy in the annals of the game”.
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