Friday 16 December 2016 05:53, UK
As Sky Sports pundit Nasser Hussain returns to Chennai - the city where he was born - to commentate on the fifth Test, Benedict Bermange looks at the England Test players who have scored centuries against their country of birth…
The first was Colin Cowdrey, who was born on his father's tea plantation in India in 1932. His father Ernest was no mean cricketer himself and had one first-class appearance for the Madras Europeans XI against the touring MCC team in January 1927. The young Colin moved to England in 1932 and subsequently attended Alf Gover's famous cricket school before enrolling at Tonbridge School.
He subsequently made his Test debut in the victorious 1954/55 Ashes tour to Australia and first played against India in 1959. At Leeds he made 160, his highest Test score at the time, and in a stay of four hours, 40 minutes he hit four sixes and 14 fours. Better was to come when England toured India in 1964. Cowdrey struck 107 at Kolkata and then 151 at Delhi the following week. In his eight Tests against India he scored 653 runs at an average of 72.55. With son Chris and Fabian, the Cowdreys are one of only two families to boast four generations of first-class cricketers.
Hussain was born in Madras (now Chennai), where as a child he visited Chepauk, where his brothers used to bat on the outfield while he chased after the ball. He moved with his family to England in 1975. A naturally talented leg-spinner, he represented Essex as early as at Under-11 level but changed his priority to batting after shooting up in height gave him the 'yips'; he went on to score more than a thousand runs at Under-16 level at school. After graduating in Natural Sciences from Durham University (as I did!) he made his Test debut on England's memorable tour of the Caribbean in 1990.
In and out of the team regularly in his formative years in international cricket, he was recalled after three years out of the team to play against India in 1996 and marked the occasion with an innings of 128 at Edgbaston - his maiden Test century. As with Cowdrey, more success followed and he struck 107 in the third Test at Nottingham before having to retire hurt with a broken finger - an affliction which would plague him throughout his career. When India returned in 2002 he was at it again, with 155 at Lord's and 110 at Leeds, helping him finish his career with 824 runs in ten Tests against India at 54.93.
Graeme Hick was an enigma. Looked upon as England's potential saviour while he served his qualification period he finally made his international debut in 1991 with 57 first-class hundreds under his belt. However, he suffered at the hands of inconsistent selection policies and for a man who ended with 136 centuries in all, the fact that only six of those came in 65 Tests left people wondering what might have been. Indeed his Test average of 31.32 is way below his overall first-class average of 52.23.
Born in Salisbury (now Harare) into a Zimbabwean tobacco-farming family, he was included in Zimbabwe's squad for the 1983 World Cup in England. The following year he came to England on a scholarship from the Zimbabwe Cricket Union and scored heavily for Worcestershire's Second XI. In 1986 he became the youngest player to score 2,000 runs in a season and two years later scored a 1,000 runs before the end of May. When he finally qualified for England he had expectations almost impossible to fulfil, and his maiden Test century finally came in his 14th Test - on England's 'spin-wash' tour of India in early 1993.
He eventually had the opportunity to face his former countrymen when Zimbabwe toured England for the first time in 2000. The Test at Lord's was a one-sided affair, but Hick marked it with an innings of 101. He spent 22 minutes nervously on 99 before a push to mid-wicket brought him his sixth and final Test century. He was jettisoned for good the following year after England's tour of Sri Lanka.
It seems only fair to tackle the next two batsmen to have scored centuries against their country of birth together. For a decade the international careers of Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen ran parallel.
Johannesburg-born Strauss was first into the Test team and made his mark immediately, with 112 and 83 on Test debut. After that successful summer of 2004 he headed to South Africa where runs continued to flow. In the first Test at Port Elizabeth he hit 126 and 94 not out, and followed up with 136 at Durban and 147 at Johannesburg to be named Player of the Series as England returned triumphant with a 2-1 win. Ironically he failed to reach three figures against in any of his 11 subsequent series against South Africa and it was the home defeat in the 2012 series which spelled the end of his captaincy reign.
Pietersen, born in Natal, arrived on the scene with similar expectations to Hick but he didn't disappoint. In his first ODI series against South Africa in early 2005 he struck three centuries in seven matches and made his mark on that summer's Ashes series with a memorable 158 at The Oval.
His first Test against South Africa came in the summer of 2008 at Lord's and he marked it with an innings of 152 from just 181 balls, as he shared in a partnership of 286 with Ian Bell. England ran up 593 and South Africa were forced to follow-on before Neil McKenzie batted for more than nine hours to save the match. England subsequently lost the next two Tests at Leeds and Edgbaston, which saw the resignation of Michael Vaughan as captain. Pietersen took over and hit exactly 100 as England won the final Test at The Oval. He was unable to repeat those heroics on the 2009/10 tour of South Africa but his final hurrah was a spectacular 149 against them at Leeds in 2012 in a match over-shadowed by the 'text-gate' affair.
The final entry on the list is Ben Stokes. Born and raised in Christchurch, he moved to England at the age of 12 when his father became coach of Workington Town rugby league team. Honing his skills in the North Lancashire & Cumbria Cricket League he debuted for Durham in 2009 and made his first appearance for England two years later.
He hit a memorable century in the 2013 Perth Test and was arguably the only success story in England's 5-0 drubbing in that Ashes series. His career appeared to have stalled when he was dismissed for three successive ducks against India the following summer, but it was a different story when New Zealand toured in 2015.
Having made 92 in the first innings of the first Test, Stokes recorded the fastest ever Test century at Lord's and second fastest by an England batsman, taking just 85 deliveries to bring up his hundred when England batted again.
A select band of players in the list so far, but who would bet against Keaton Jennings joining them next summer when some of his former Under-19 team-mates tour England with the full South African team?
You can watch the fifth Test between India v England live on Sky Sports 2 HD from 3.30am on Friday.
