A hundred at long last

Given Jason Gillespie's bottomless reservoir of patience, his penchant for stonewalling and the weak opposition he was facing, it was not so much his 526-minute and 425-ball innings that astonished, but the fact that he made 201 runs in the course of it. His masterclass at Chittagong proved that even a limited batsman could achieve the seemingly impossible.

This week, the List features batsmen with the lowest averages before scoring their maiden century and double-century, and those who had to wait the longest for a Test hundred.

Eight ducks, five in a row against Australia, in his first 16 innings and several spells on the sidelines had reduced the batsman in Ajit Agarkar to an object of ridicule. At Lord's, he soothed some of his wounds with his maiden century but India still lost by 170 runs. Since then, he's not gone past fifty and his batting potential remains just that.

Marvan Atapattu also had a horrendous start to his Test career: dropped after a pair on debut, he one run in his second match and another pair in his third after 16 months on the sidelines. His highest score in 11 innings before the 1997-98 tour of India was 29. At Mohali, he scored his first century. His first double came two months later and Atapattu had turned the corner.

Gillespie has the third-lowest average for a batsman before scoring his maiden double-hundred but the two batsmen whose averages are lower belong to the era before World War II. Coincidentally both Gillespie and Wasin Akram, whose double-century helped Pakistan avoid defeat against Zimbabwe, reached their landmarks in their 71st Test.

Akram had scored a century prior to his double but Gillespie's 70-Test wait for his first hundred is by far the longest, beating Heath Streak, who played 55 Tests before scoring a hundred.

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