David Warner smashed his 25th Test century off just 144 balls in the Australia vs South Africa Test on Tuesday. It was his first Test hundred after almost three years since January 2020. Warner hit a boundary on Kagiso Rabada's delivery down the on-side to score 100. Warner broke various records by hitting his 45th international ton.
Let's look at milestones achieved and records broken by Warner with his 100 in the 100th Test:
Warner who was under scrutiny for a long time for his underwhelming performance in the longest form of cricket became just the 10th batsman in the world to hit a century in the 100th Test match. He is only the second Australian after Ricky Ponting to achieve the feat.
List of batters to score 100 in their 100th Test match:
- Colin Cowdrey (England) - 104 vs Australia in 1968
- Javed Miandad (Pakistan) - 145 vs India in 1989
- Gordon Greenidge (West Indies) - 149 vs England in 1990
- Alex Stewart (England) - 105 vs West Indies in 2000
- Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pakistan) - 184 vs India in 2005
- Ricky Ponting (Australia) - 120 and 143* vs South Africa in 2006
- Graeme Smith (South Africa) - 131 vs England in 2012
- Hashim Amla (South Africa) - 134 vs Sri Lanka in 2017
- Joe Root (England) - 218 vs India in 2021
- David Warner ( Australia) - 100* vs South Africa in 2022
Warner who ended his streak of 27 innings without crossing the three-figure mark, also crossed the 800-run milestone. He became only the eighth Australian to do so.
The star Australia opener is ranked fifth among all the openers in the history of Tests to score the most hundreds. Following is the list:
- Sunil Gavaskar - 33 centuries (203 innings)
- Alastair Cook - 31 centuries (278 innings)
- Matthew Hayden - 30 centuries (184 innings)
- Graeme Smith - 27 centuries (196 innings)
- David Warner - 25 centuries (181 innings)
Warner has also equaled Sachin Tendulkar to top the list of openers with the most number of centuries across formats
- David Warner - 45
- Sachin Tendulkar - 45
- Chris Gayle - 42
- Sanath Jayasuriya - 41
- Matthew Hayden - 40
When it comes to most international centuries among active players, Warner is only behind Virat Kohli who has scored 72 centuries.
Warner joined the 100 Test club on Monday in the second match against South Africa. He became only the third opener and the 14th player to play 100 Tests for his country. Before the match, Warner had scored 7922 runs at an average of 45.52 with a strike rate of 71.20.
