Ross Taylor, who redeemed his career in the run orgy at Perth in scoring a mammoth 290, would have been the 14th batsman in the past 15 years to score a triple century had he not fallen 10 runs short.
Significantly, the total number of Test triple centuries is only 28 which suggests that batsmen in this century have become significantly more prolific than those previously. Why and how this is happening is takes some unravelling, but first let’s cast a look at how this elite club has evolved.
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The first Test triple centurion was England opener Andrew Sandham who scored 325 in a `timeless’ Test against West Indies at Kingston’s Sabina Park in the first week of April 1930, the innings occupying no less than 10 hours. For the record, he batted at number 7 in the second innings and made 50.
Bewilderingly, Sandham never played another Test again and, just a couple of months shy of his 40th birthday, was considered too old to feature in the Ashes series later that year.
Had he played this series, Sandham would have seen his record snatched away by a 22-year-old prodigy who would end up the greatest batsman of all time. Don Bradman, on his first tour of England, hammered 334 at Leeds on July 11, 1930 – including 309 in one day – to announce his genius.
The next few years saw a tantalising race for batting honours between the two best batsmen of that era. In March of 1933, England’s Wally Hammond pulverised New Zealand for 336 (in just 318 minutes!) to snatch the record from Bradman.
But the irrepressible Aussie, on his second tour of England, notched up a sequel to his first triple hundred (304), again at Leeds. Bradman may have lost the record score, but had left no doubt that he was the greatest batsman the world had seen.
There has been no revision in Bradman’s status since, though a few other batsmen have also made two triple centuries subsequently, the most notable among these being the delectable left-handed Trinidadian, Brian Lara.
Lara first broke Sir Gary Sobers’ record 365 which had stood for 36 long years (he made 375 against England at Antigua in 1994), and then went on to score a mind-boggling 400 not out at the same ground ten years later to regain the record from Mathew Hayden, who only a few months earlier had made 380 against Zimbabwe in Perth.
In between these innings, Lara also made an astonishing 501 for Warwickshire in English county cricket to plonk himself as the highest run-getter in both Test and first-class cricket. Both his record scores seem unlikely to be bettered, but then again given the way batting has evolved, especially in the new millennium, who would bet against it?
The turn of the millennium saw a sudden spurt in triple centuries. Hayden’s 380 in 2003 triggered a plethora of such knocks. A total of 13 in 12 years since, triple tons have occurred with a regularity that discounts any anomaly and includes two apiece by dashing openers Virender Sehwag and Chris Gayle. The last one came as recently as the 2013-14 season when Brendon McCullum made 302 against India in Wellington.
These triple centuries have also not been geographically limited to sustain the argument that such high scores are possible only on certain pitches and in certain conditions. They have instead been scored in the West Indies, India, Australia, England, Bangaldesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and New Zealand.
The only major cricket playing country where a Test triple has not been scored yet is South Africa, the highest being 275 by Gary Kirsten against England at Durban in 1999. But this seems a cinch given the way batsmen are going nowadays.
Hasham Amla already has one to his credit in England (311 at the Oval in 2012) and has the wherewithal in technique and temperament – and age on his side — to correct this aberration. Not to mention AB de Villiers, the best batsman in the game currently and a one-man record breaker.
Interestingly, while a triple century is a terrific landmark, it does not necessarily define a batsman’s greatness. Among those who don’t have a Test triple are some of cricket’s biggest names.
Denis Compton, Everton Weekes, Clyde Walcott, Rohan Kanhai, Greg Chappell, Sunil Gavaskar, Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Javed Miandad, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis are all without one.
And all of them would feature on most people’s list of the 50 batsmen of all-time. On the other hand, Sandham, Lawrence Rowe, Gayle, McCullum, Bob Cowper – all triple centurions, may not for a variety of reasons.
That’s the background. So what explains the dramatic rise in triple centuries in the past decade and a bit? It’s not, as some might believe, poor opposition. Only two of the 13 triples in this period have come against minnows Zimbabwe (Hayden) and Bangladesh (Sangakara, 314 at Chittagong, 2014).
There are some strong reasons that could explain this phenomenon: more matches, covered pitches, better willows, and a more adventurous approach to batsmanship all valid.
Of these, the first three are self-explanatory, the fourth most significant. The approach of batsmen has seen a dramatic shift towards aggression because of the strong influence of limited overs cricket, Twenty20 in particular.
Since the turn of the century, there have been more results in Tests than in any other time in the history of the game. Draws, the perceived bane of the sport, have become more infrequent and is largely down to the risk-taking propensity of batsmen today.
Despite this, Test matches attract fewer spectators, though this does not necessarily reflect disdain for the five-day format, rather a lack of acumen on the part of administrators.
There are millions who follow Test cricket online, or take it in doses because of time constraints. What this only suggests is that Test cricket needs savvy marketing to get bums on seats.
Anyway, this analysis must finish on an aspect that intrigues: there were only four triple centuries in the 32 years between Sobers’s 365 in 1958 and Graham Gooch’s 333 against India at Lord’s in 1990.
The argument that Tests were fewer in this period is tepid and that batsmen were not good enough is outrageous. Perhaps it may have had something to do with the kind of bowlers who were around: Hall, Griffith, Gibbs, McKenzie, Lillee, Thomson, Imran, Sarfraz, Qadir, Wasim, Bedi, Prasanna, Chandrashekhar, Kapil, Hadlee, Trueman, Statham, Botham, Willis, Underwood, Roberts, Holding, Marshall, Garner.
Ain’t that worth a study?
