Centuries in Tests and ODIS
What is most commonly being talked about these days by the cricketers, cricket boards, players, former players and millions of cricket fans is about the number of one day internationals being played and how easy has it become to scores runs in one dayers.
There was a time when teams were finding it difficult to score even 200 runs in a 60 over one day international. Today with more number of one dayers being played round the year, grounds becoming smaller, bowling attacks friendlier there is nothing more easier than a one dayer than scoring runs. Rules too have changed the rules to favour batsman as organizers say that crowds come to fours and sixes and not wicket tumbling that this has certainly helped the cause of batsmen. Another thing which has gone in favour of today's batsmen is the fact that they get to play more matches against minnows Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Associate countries and therefore stand a greater chance of improving on their career records.
Yet with all these advantages when it comes to leading century makers in the history of one dayers, only 6 of them have more than 20 career centuries against their name and only 3 of them Sachin, Jayasurya and Ponting have managed to score more than 25 centuries in their career. If you consider the fact that as many as 3029 one day internationals have been played certainly there should have been more than 3 cricketers with 25 plus career centuries.
On the contrary experts consider Test Cricket more tougher and run scoring is considered difficult considering there are no free runs, no field restrictions and no part time bowlers but records show batsmen are more comfortable accumulating centuries in the longest form of the game which is considered the real game and one which involved skills, strength of character and technique. In contrast to 3029 one day internationals only 1964 Test Matches have been played but what is remarkable is that as many as 32 batsman have recorded 20 or more centuries in their career.
One dayers being easier to play, it ushered in an era of one day specialists like Ajay Jadeja and Michael Bevan who hardly got a chance to play in Tests while others were not as fortunate as they finished their career playing one dayers only never getting a opportunity to play a Test Match but at the end of the day the fact that batsmen consistently got more centuries against their name in Tests indicate that they did not put as much of a price tag on their wicket in one dayers as they put in Tests.
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