Stats Analysis

A rare hundred by a Pakistan captain

Azhar Ali became the eighth Pakistan captain to score an ODI hundred and the first in five years

Bishen Jeswant
 ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Azhar Ali's century in the 3rd ODI against Bangladesh made him the eighth Pakistan captain to score an ODI hundred. India have had the most such captains, 11, with Australia having 10. While this difference may not seem stark, it is interesting that captains from India and Australia have cumulatively scored 78 ODI centuries (39 each) while Azhar Ali's century is only the 10th by a Pakistan captain.

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Teamwise performance of captains in ODIs
Team Mat 100 Mat/100 Players* Runs Ave
 India  880  39  22.56  11  27378  41.16
 Australia  856  39  21.95  10  25970  36.99
 New Zealand  682  19  35.89  9  17920  32.64
 England  644  17  37.88  9  17333  31.74
 West Indies  731  18  40.61  8  17676  33.73
 Pakistan  840  10  84.00  8  19704  32.84
 Sri Lanka  752  21  35.81  7  21857  35.13
 South Africa  536  19  28.21  4  15846  39.71
*Number of players to have scored ODI centuries as captain

The last Pakistan captain to score an ODI hundred was Shahid Afridi, also against Bangladesh, during the 2010 Asia Cup. In fact, Afridi scored two centuries during that Asia Cup. The only other Pakistan batsman to score two hundreds as captain was Inzamam-ul-Haq.

Most ODI hundreds as captain
Player Mat Runs Ave SR 100s
 RT Ponting  230  8497  42.91  83.41  22
 SC Ganguly  147  5104  38.66  76.2  11
 ST Jayasuriya  118  4377  38.73  88.05  10
 AB de Villiers  68  3418  69.75  111.8  9
 GC Smith  150  5416  38.96  83.06  8

The only captain to score more than 20 ODI centuries is Ricky Ponting (22), followed by Saurav Ganguly (11) and Sanath Jayasuriya (10). Two among the top-four regular batsmen to captain their respective teams in the most ODIs without scoring a single century are from Pakistan - Misbah-ul-Haq (87) and Javed Miandad (62). The others are Hansie Cronje (138) and Habibul Bashar (69).

ODI Hundreds by Pakistan captains
Player Runs Opposition Ground Year
 Imran Khan  102*  v Sri Lanka  Leeds  1983
 Rameez Raja  104*  v West Indies  Sharjah  1995
 Aamer Sohail  105  v India  Sharjah  1996
 Saeed Anwar  115  v Sri Lanka  Nairobi (Gym)  1996
 Inzamam-ul-Haq  122  v India  Karachi  2004
 Inzamam-ul-Haq  123  v India  Lahore  2004
 Shoaib Malik  125*  v India  Karachi  2008
 Shahid Afridi  109  v Sri Lanka  Dambulla  2010
 Shahid Afridi  124  v Bangladesh  Dambulla  2010
 Azhar Ali  101  v Bangladesh  Dhaka  2015

Azhar Ali has scored 209 runs in this series making it only the ninth instance of a Pakistan captain scoring 200-plus runs in a bilateral ODI series. Inzamam has achieved this feat on three occasions while Misbah has done it twice.

Azhar AliBangladeshPakistanBangladesh vs PakistanPakistan tour of Bangladesh

Bishen Jeswant is a stats sub editor with ESPNcricinfo.