Being Outside Cricket

Adam Lyth – 107 v New Zealand at Headingley

Yawn. Another small ton. Can’t you feel the statistical resentment rise in me. But stop for a minute and think what it meant for Adam. His first ton in his second test on his home patch. It’s top notch for him, and he was sawn off for good measure to end his 107 as run out.

But we’ve been here before this year. It’s the second 107 following on from Asad Shafiq’s last month. So I need to pad out a couple of hundred words over and above this to make this piece somewhat worthwhile.

This is the second 107 made at Headingley. The other scorer of 107 was David Boon in the annihilation of the English in 1993, when Australia piled up the small number of 653/4, with Border making a double ton, and Steve Waugh 157 not out. The last Englishman to be dismissed for 107 in tests was Marcus Trescothick in 2004 in his two century match against the West Indies.

Lyth also shares something else with Marcus Trescothick, as well as Allan Lamb in 1982 v India at The Oval and Chris Rogers against South Africa in Port Elizabeth last year. They are the only four players to have been run out for 107 in a test match.

I thought I’d do a quick comparison of the last England openers to make their first hundreds and how many runs were in that innings. This was the 295th test century made by an English opener, by the way.

Marcus Trescothick – 122 v Sri Lanka in Galle

Andrew Strauss – 112 v New Zealand at Lord’s (on debut)

Alastair Cook – 104 not out v India at Nagpur (on debut)

Nick Compton – 117 v New Zealand at Dunedin

Sam Robson – 127 v Sri Lanka at Headingley

Adam Lyth – 107 v India at Headingley.

Michael Vaughan and Joe Root made centuries from the opener slot but they weren’t their first hundreds in tests. Interesting that Robson has the highest of those scores.

By the way that was the 77th hundred made by an English opener since 1 January 2000.

Adam Lyth’s 100 came up in 188 balls and contained 14×4.