V V S Laxman scored an unbeaten century in the first innings of the second test match between India and South Africa played at Eden Gardens Kolkata during 14th February 2010 to 18th February 2010.  During the course of his unbeaten 143 which was his 15th in Test Matches, Laxman became the 35th batsmen in the history of Test Matches to accumulate 7000 career runs in Test Matches. V V S Laxman has a strange Test Match record when it comes to scroing hundreds.

V V S Laxman has an interesting record when it comes to scoring hundreds in Test Matches.  Laxman has manged to score only 15 hundreds in 181 innings which is not a great record but one thing needs to be taken into consideration is the fact that Laxman has batted low in the order between No.5 to No.8 in 118 innings in his career. The fact that he has played 2/3 of his innings low in the order means that he does not get enough opportunities to score hundreds. However to be fair to the team management with batsmen like Sehwag and Gambhir at the top of order and with legends Sachin and Dravid to follow, Laxman cannot be moved up the order though he deserves a place higher up in the order.

There is another interesting aspect about Laxman's hundreds.  Whenever Laxman gets a century he gets a really big one for it is almost impossible to dismiss him.  Laxman's 15 hundreds in test matches have fetched him 2194 runs at an average of 146 runs per hundred.  Laxman has remained not out on 6 of those occasions which means he averages 244 runs per hundred. Not many batsmen in history of Test Cricket can boast of such a high average after crossing a century.

Laxman has scored 7136 runs in 110 Test Matches at an average of 46.64.  Laxman's average may pale in comparison when you look at greats of the game like Sachin Tendulkar who averages in excess of 55 but if you ignore the likes of Sachin and company, Laxman has a batting average which qualifies among the greats of the game.  Gundappa Vishwanath and Dilip Vengsarkar considered greats of the game averaged 41.93 and 42.13 respectively while finishing their careers with 6080 and 6868 Test runs and Laxman has comfortably surpassed these Indian greats both in terms of career runs and batting averages.

In the all time list of top run getters for India, Laxman has only legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar above him while Sourav Ganguly with 7212 Test runs is within striking distance.

In a team which has superstars like Sachin, Sehwag, Dravid and recent addition to the list in the form of Dhoni, the amount of runs scored by Laxman is not noted by many in the same vein as he is talked of his class.

• Written by N R SATISH.
• In category Cricket.
• 14 years ago.

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