Pietersen and Cook waste no time

While browsing through player profiles on Cricinfo the other day, we stumbled upon Alastair Cook's. Does it surprise you that he's already played 52 Tests? Michael Clarke seems to have been around for much longer, and he's only played 58. It got us wondering about who's played a certain number of matches in the quickest time. So we checked on which players raced to 50 and 100 Tests in the shortest span of time, and also on those who took the longest. While we were at it we dug up lists for ODIs too.

Cook's debut came at short notice in March 2006. He was touring West Indies with the A team when an injury-ridden England squad sent him an SOS from India. He responded with 60 in the first innings of the Nagpur Test. Cook's missed only one match since - Mumbai 2006 - and with England playing plenty, he recently picked up his 50th cap during the Boxing Day Test in South Africa, after only three years and 300 days on the international circuit. He was second fastest to the 50-Test landmark.

The quickest to get there is Kevin Pietersen. He missed no England Tests between his debut, against Australia at Lord's in July 2005, and his 50th game - the Trinidad Test in March 2009. He took only three years and 228 days, smashing Marcus Trescothick's record. Trescothick had taken three years and 312 days to play 50 Tests and was the first player to do it inside four years.

Unless injuries or other unexpected developments interrupt Pietersen's career, he is on course to play 100 Tests in the shortest span of time. Mark Waugh is presently the quickest - eight years and 342 days - and is the only player to do it within nine years. Waugh missed two Tests for Australia in his first 22 and then played 107 in a row - the second longest streak ever, after Border's 153.

Most of the players quickest to 50 and 100 Tests are from either England or Australia but two Indians head the list of players fastest to 10 Tests. India played plenty of matches between September and December 1979 and it was during this period that Dilip Doshi and Yashpal Sharma made their debuts. Doshi played his first ten Tests in 105 days and Sharma in 111.

England's Freddie Brown, on the other hand, took an eternity to play ten Tests. Born in Lima (any other Test cricketers born in Peru?), Brown made his debut against New Zealand at the Oval in 1931, when he was not yet 21. The second World War interrupted his career and it was only in 1950 - 19 years and 125 days after his debut - that Brown played his tenth Test.

Syd Gregory was the first player to reach 50 Tests and he did it after 19 years and five days. That was surpassed by the second man to play 50 Tests - Wilfred Rhodes, who took 21 years and 227 days and is still the slowest.

Graham Gooch, who spent three years out of the England team between his second and third Test and lost another three years for leading a rebel tour to apartheid South Africa, took the longest time to play 100 Tests. He made his debut as a 21-year-old in 1975 and played his 100th 17 years and 203 days later in 1993. Allan Border, who made his debut in 1979, had played 138 Tests by then.

Gooch was also the slowest to play 100 one-day internationals, taking 15 years and 180 days to get there. MS Dhoni, the quickest to the mark, did it in three years and 51 days. Most of the players who were among the quickest to play 100 ODIs began their careers in the 2000s or around the 1996 World Cup. Inzamam-ul-Haq, who made his debut in 1991 and played 100 games in four years and 102 days, is one of only two players (Nayan Mongia is the other) in the table below to have begun before 1995.

It's a little over five years since Dhoni made his ODI debut in December 2004 and he's played 162 ODIs to date. India have seven ODIs against Australia later this year, some other series which the BCCI will cook up, and the World Cup in early 2011, so Dhoni stands a good chance to get to 200 ODIs quicker than Kumar Sangakkara did - in six years and 297 days.

If there's a particular List you would like to see, email us with your comments and suggestions.