Rogers' century, and career, defined by patience

When David Warner scored 119 against South Africa in Adelaide in November last year, Chris Rogers was battling along for Victoria before a mid-summer lull with Sydney Thunder. Ten months later, after becoming Australia's second-oldest man to make a maiden Test century, Rogers stands as a magical symbol of reprieve: from time, from oblivion, from the laws of gravity, writes Malcolm Knox in The Sydney Morning Herald.

In his stance, squinting through contact lenses, bat dangling loosely, Rogers seemed like the red-haired, freckled class captain with his stats books who opens the batting because he cleans the kit and refuses to be the scorer. Look now - the cricket nuffie is a first-class batsman of 20,000 runs' standing, and an Ashes century-maker.

Rogers had played just one Test before this tour, miserly reward for over 20,000 first-class runs at an average of over 50. But Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer were a rather useful opening partnership. In The Telegraph, Steve James says that Langer could not have played any better than Rogers did.

He would have scrapped away, just as Rogers did. He would have watched the ball like a hawk, playing it as late as he could, just as Rogers did. He would have played and missed, and then forgot it ever happened, just as Rogers did.

Rogers had to face up against Stuart Broad, who ran in with almost hypnotic rhythm to make the new ball dart spitefully from the pitch, writes Mike Selvey, in The Guardian.

For someone with more than 200 Test match wickets he seems to be much maligned as a bowler, but he has a remarkable capacity to produce bursts of wicket-taking that almost seem to gain an uncontrollable momentum of their own, occasionally when not at his best. There is, at times, no rhyme nor reason for it: it is just something that happens. But what he produced here was from the top drawer of new ball use, for there was scarcely a delivery that was not on line or on a length. No width was allowed or any crossbat shots.