Who will be the next triple centurion?

About 84,000 individual Test innings have been played till date. Only 31 have yielded a triple century, David Warner’s unbeaten 335 just over a week ago the latest. Clearly, triples are rare feats. But not as rare as they once were. The first 125 years of Test cricket saw 15 of them, once every 105 Tests and 3,700 individual innings on an average; just the last 17 years have seen as many as 16, once every 50 Tests and 1,800 individual innings on an average. The clustering has much to do with the frequency of games and the pace at which modern batsmen score. A third of all Tests ever have happened after 2001, and decadal batting strike rates are higher now than ever before.

Should the post-2001 trend be maintained – a triple ton a year on an average, with the three year gap between the two most recent instances (Warner’s and Karun Nair’s) being the longest – we will not have wait long for the next breach of the landmark.

As for the individual who will do it, we may already have seen him in action. Unless a newbie springs a Nair-like surprise. Nair joined the honors list with two Tests and less than a month of Test cricket behind him. Experience, even if not a lot of it, counts otherwise. Of the 13 others to have notched triple tons post-2001 (Chris Gayle and Virender Sehwag did it twice during the period), 11 had more than 40 Tests and five years of Test cricket under their belt (several had double that) and even the remaining two weren’t exactly wet behind the ears (having featured in over a dozen Tests) when they first reached the milestone.

Backing someone from the current player pool to be the next to celebrate the achievement makes sense then. Intuition suggests that this someone would be a quality batsman capable of brisk scoring, normally be batting high up the order – the higher, the better his chances – and have hinted at the appetite for the long inning.

Statistics confirm all of it. None coming in at number six or lower has made a triple ton, with openers and one-drops accounting for 24 of the 31 triples. Most post-2001 triple centurions averaged over 45, had strike rates over 50, and at least one 300+ ball, 400+ minute knock to their credit before they first scaled Mount 300. Those with humbler averages (Brendon McCullum) and strike rates (Azhar Ali) and no history of long knocks (Sehwag) have shone too but less often.

Applying the above filters to active players who haven’t got the big one yet throws up six contenders. Some predictable: Joe Root, Kane Williamson, Steve Smith, and Virat Kohli; others less so: Mayank Agarwal (though short on experience, nine Tests till date) and Ross Taylor. Among those missing the cut by not very much are Ajinkya Rahane, Angelo Mathews, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, and Tom Latham.

Any of those cricketers can follow Warner – indeed, an outsider can too – but we keep focus on the most likely six moving forward. Among them, Williamson, Smith, Kohli, and Agarwal present themselves as the more viable candidates. Though capable batsmen both, Root has been off the boil in Tests for the last couple of years and age isn’t on Taylor’s side. Triples haven’t come easily to men over 35.

Purely in terms of Test batsmanship, there is little reason to look beyond Smith. The fact that he normally comes in at No 4 in an age of aggressive, occasionally heartless declarations could mar his chances though. One considers Agarwal’s case tentatively, simply because it is early days in his career and his two biggest knocks have come on home soil. No such hobblers for Williamson though. Not for Kohli either, unless the jinx that has hounded the tallest Indian batsmen of past generations checks him. Triples, remember, have eluded both Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar.

They may be coming quick and fast these days but the triple remains a special achievement – a cherished moment even for the frequently celebrated, a prized trophy even in the most cluttered of record cabinets. Knowing cricket, it is impossible to predict whose head the crown will adorn next. There is more than one head it fits. If it lands on Williamson’s, an accomplished cricketer and, by accounts, a fine individual, there shouldn’t be much heartburn. Kohli fans, of course, would prefer it another way.

(Manish Dubey is a policy analyst and writer)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.