All about fourth-innings hundreds

This week in our stats series Did You Know? where we present well known and lesser-known facts on a theme, we look at records and trivia related to fourth-innings hundreds. All the numbers below are from men's Test matches only.

247 The total number of centuries that have come in the fourth innings of Tests, out of a total of 4210 centuries in Test history; in percentage terms, that is only 5.9% of all hundreds. Out of the 247, 75 have resulted in wins, which is 30.4% of the fourth-innings hundreds. There have been an equal number of fourth-innings hundreds in losses and drawn matches - 86 each.

180 Number of batsmen who have scored centuries in the fourth innings. In comparison, 393 players have scored hundreds in the third innings, 506 in the second innings and 546 in first innings of the Test. In terms of frequency, batsmen score a century in the fourth innings once every 48.6 attempts, while the corresponding numbers in the third, second, and first innings are 25.4, 17.5 and 15.3.

5 Centuries scored by Younis Khan in the fourth innings of Tests - the most by a batsman. Sunil Gavaskar, Ricky Ponting, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Graeme Smith have scored four tons each.

4 Number of fourth-innings hundreds for Smith in wins, the most by a batsman. Ponting has three centuries in successful chases while four others have two such hundreds: Conrad Hunte, Justin Langer, Sarwan and Kane Williamson.

32 Centuries by Steve Waugh in Tests, but none in the fourth innings. He has the most career hundreds without a fourth-innings ton. Steven Smith comes next with 26 centuries in his career, but without any in the fourth innings. Mohammad Yousuf (24), Virender Sehwag (23), Colin Cowdrey and Ian Bell (22 each) round off the top six. Among current batsmen, Cheteshwar Pujara (18 hundreds) and Joe Root (17) have not scored a fourth-innings hundred yet. The batsman who has batted most often in the fourth innings without scoring a century is Chris Gayle, with 43 innings.

4 Number of fourth-innings hundreds in wins for India and Sri Lanka, which is the lowest among the top eight teams. Australian batsmen have scored 20 centuries in successful chases, the most for a team, followed by 12 each for England and West Indies. Out of the four centuries by Sri Lanka batsmen in successful chases, two came in 2019 - Kusal Perera's famous unbeaten 153 in Durban and Dimuth Karunaratne's 122 against New Zealand in Galle. India have the lowest percentage of fourth-innings centuries that resulted in wins, 14.29% (4 out of 28) while Australia have the highest, 45.45% (20 out of 44).

49 Number of consecutive innings batted by Rahul Dravid without scoring a fourth-innings century. He scored his only hundred in the last innings of a Test against New Zealand in Hamilton in 1999, and after that he made eight fifties in 49 innings with a best of 87 in Port Elizabeth in 2001. In fact, Dravid did not score a fifty in his last 21 fourth-innings efforts, after his unbeaten 68 against West Indies in Basseterre in 2006.

5 Players who have scored double-centuries in the fourth innings. Incidentally, four of the five double-hundreds were scored against England while the other one was by an England batsman. George Headley's 223 in Kingston in 1930 was the first double-ton in the fourth innings, and it remains the highest score when batting last. The only double-century in a successful chase is Gordon Greenidge's 214 not out at Lord's in 1984. Nathan Astle's 222 in Christchurch in 2002 is the only fourth-innings double-ton in a defeat. Bill Edrich's 219 in Durban in 1939 and Sunil Gavaskar's 221 at The Oval in 1979 were in drawn matches.

44 Number of consecutive career hundreds scored by Jacques Kallis without a fourth-innings century. Of his 45 Test hundreds, the first came in the fourth innings, when he made 101 against Australia at the MCG in 1997, but he went through the rest of his long career without replicating that effort. He made ten fifties in 46 attempts in the fourth innings after that MCG century.

7 Batsmen who scored centuries in the fourth innings on their Test debut. The last to do so was Faf du Plessis in Adelaide in 2012, while the first was Abbas Ali Baig against England at Old Trafford in 1959. Nasser Hussain is the only batsman to score a century in the fourth innings of his last Test; he scored 103 not out at Lord's against New Zealand in 2004.

11 Instances of two batsmen scoring centuries in a successful fourth-innings chase. The last was by Younis Khan and Shan Masood against Sri Lanka in Pallekele in 2015. Australia have had three such instances, which is the most. There have been six instances of teams losing when two batsmen scored hundreds. The last such occurrence was in 2018 - after a gap of more than 35 years - when KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant scored centuries against England at The Oval in an unsuccessful chase of a 464-run target.

For more Did You Know stories, click here.