Smith youngest to notch a ton on Aus captaincy debut

Virat Kohli led India against Australia in the first Test at Adelaide in place of regular captain MS Dhoni. And Kohli made his captaincy debut a memorable one by scoring hundreds in both innings of the Test – 115 in the first innings and 141 in the second innings. Kohli thus became only the second player in Test cricket to score hundreds in both innings of first Test as captain, emulating Australia’s Greg Chappell. At 26 years 238 days Kohli also became the youngest captain to score two hundreds in a Test, wresting the record from Zimbabwean Brendan Taylor, who was incidentally the last player to score a hundred on captaincy debut before Kohli.

In the second Test at Brisbane, it was Australia’s turn to miss out on the services of regular captain Michael Clarke. Steven Smith was given the responsibility to lead the side. And Smith ended up with the highest innings by an Australian captain on debut since Warwick Armstrong’s 158 in 1920. At 25 years 200 days he also became the youngest Australian captain to score a hundred on captaincy debut.

Twin hundreds for Virat Kohli at Adelaide and a hundred for Steven Smith at Brisbane -  how rare it is to see two players scoring hundreds on captaincy debut in the same series? Well, this is the first instance of this kind in Test chronicles.

A total of 29 players have now scored hundreds while leading their respective sides for the first time.  The list includes nine Australians, five Englishmen, four New Zealanders, four Indians, three West Indians, two South Africans and two Zimbabweans.

Two players – New Zealand’s Graham Dowling and West Indies’ Shivnarine Chanderpaul-  turned their hundreds into double hundreds.

Australia's Bill Murdoch and Harry Trott scored a century in the second innings of the match after getting a duck in the first innings. Apart from Greg Chappell and Virat Kohli, India's Vijay Hazare also went on to score centuries in his first two innings as captain (in two separate Tests though). Kohli's match aggregate of 256 is the highest for any player in debut Test as captain.

Zimbabwean Dave Houghton is the only player to have done so in his country’s first ever Test.

Hundred on captaincy debut in Test cricket

The following table lists the highest scores on captaincy debut for each country. It is really surprising that despite having 30 captains, the highest score on captaincy debut for Pakistan is just 78. Similarly, the record of highest score on captaincy debut for Sri Lanka is held by a leg-spinner!

Highest scores on captaincy debut for each country

# in second innings 

-RAJNEESH GUPTA