Test cricket's 100 Club celebrated

It was inevitable as soon as Test cricket started to involve more teams, and when it became such an appealing television sport, that some of its records of durability would become easier to attain. So it has in terms of appearances by players.

The achievement of 100 Tests is a monumental feat, no matter who the player is. No-one would begrudge Colin Cowdrey his achievement of being the first to three figures. As an icon of a past era of the game, yet solidly connected to the modern age through his scripting of The Spirit of Cricket, it is fair testimony to his quality, and his standing in cricket, that the honour will never be lost to him.

There are now 27 members of the 100-Test club, with Brian Lara hovering on 96 and probably the next to achieve the milestone. Kersi Meher-Homji, a prolific Australian-based author, has produced a book devoted to the members of this club, and has made an assessment of their performance in their 100th match.

In many instances, he also talked to the players about their own memories of their 100th match, and this results in some of the best moments in the book. It could have degenerated into a mere recitation of fact weighted upon fact, but the author has attempted to bring the subject matter to life. In his essay on Geoff Boycott he notes: "My lasting memory is of Boycott offering valuable tips to Pakistan's wonder boy Javed Miandad, then aged 19, in the visitors' dressing-room during the 1976-77 Sydney Test. The teenager had just returned to the pavilion after scoring 64 splendid runs on a lightning-fast SCG strip against Lillee at his demonic best. I don't know what Boycott was doing in the Pakistani dressing-room but I saw him, in a singlet and shorts, demonstrating to Miandad the correct way to cover-drive. 'If you drive like what you did today, you'll get caught in the gully in England.' But Miandad, arrogant even then, brushed aside his help and looked the other way. After a gutsy 64 against Lillee, Max Walker and Gary Gilmour, he thought he did not need private tuition." Priceless ... but, as Meher-Homji notes, a different Boycott to the one often portrayed.

The poignant circumstances of Ian Healy's 100th Test are nicely captured by the author. Where it hasn't been possible to call on personal reminiscence of the players' achievements he has cobbled together relevant information, with due acknowledgment to his sources.

The ratings of the players' 100th matches are not central to the book and, given the poor performances by many of them in the game, that is hardly surprising. Interestingly, the player who emerged with the best rating was Shane Warne, with nine out of 10 for his effort at Cape Town in the second Test of the 2001-02 series against South Africa. He played two key hands with the bat, scoring 63 in the first innings and being unbeaten on 15 when victory was achieved. He also took eight wickets, six of them in the second innings.

The book is rounded out with a thorough statistical section. Cricket is renowned as a literary source full of nooks and crannies capable of development in books. Meher-Homji has found another one, and filled the gap in a tidy manner which just happens to profile some of the greatest names in the game.