Worth a ton: Top Aussie Test knocks under 100, Part 2

It has forever been a peculiarity of cricket, a sport so infatuated by numbers, that the difference between 99 and 100 is so much more than just a single run.

Part 1: Gilchrist, Khawaja & Smith

Batting greatness is often measured in hundreds made as much as runs scored, which can mean the value of some decisive batting performances over the years has been diminished simply because they have fallen short of the magical three figures.

This week, cricket.com.au will look back on Australia's 15 most important sub-100 innings in men's Test matches of the past 40 years, acknowledging the gritty half-centuries and backs-to-the wall innings that won Test matches, saved series and defined careers but don't appear in that all-important hundreds column.

The criteria

When ranking these performances, extra weight was given to those knocks that have taken on a greater significance beyond solely the substance of the innings itself; runs that paved the way for a breakthrough series win, led to a rare Test victory abroad or secured a face-saving draw.

It means performances like Ashton Agar's 98 on Test debut in 2013, while an instant Ashes classic, was not included as it came in a match and series that Australia lost, and Agar himself was dropped just two Tests later.

We've set the qualification time period at the past four decades, since 1982, and considered only sub-100 scores by Australians in men's Test matches.

12) Allan Border

Second Test v West Indies, Port of Spain, 1984

Batter's score: 98no

Team score at start of innings: 3-16

Team score at end of innings: 255 all out

Percentage of team total: 38.4

Next highest score: 48

Match result: Match drawn

Series outcome: West Indies won 3-0 (five matches)

By Martin Smith

The late Dean Jones, scorer of 11 Test hundreds including that famous double in Madras in 1986, always said the 48 he made on debut against West Indies was the best of his 89 Test innings.

The fact Allan Border scored more than twice as many runs in that innings without being dismissed only goes some of the way to detailing his heroic deeds in the 1984 Trinidad Test.

Australia's first series in the post Lillee-Marsh-Chappell era presented them with the toughest challenge in world cricket – the mighty West Indies away from home.

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Under the tutelage of Clive Lloyd, the Windies were not even a third of the way through an extraordinary period of dominance that would see them not lose a single Test series, at home or away, for 15 years.

Australia, on the other hand, were weakened by the recent retirement of their legendary trio and much of the focus leading into the tour had been on a contract dispute that was settled just weeks before they left the country.

After rain in Guyana had helped them to a draw in the first Test, Australia were sent in on a spicy pitch in Trinidad against a pace attack minus the injured Michael Holding but still led by Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall and Wayne Daniel.

Having slumped to 3-16 and then 4-55 by lunch on a rain-shortened first day, Border found an unlikely ally in debutant Jones, and the pair defied the hostile conditions to add a century stand.

Image Id: F66AD2024EFF42379E036C616437A181 Image Caption: Border withstood everything the Windies threw at him // Getty

With the dampness in the pitch leading to divots being bored out on a good length, the frightening lift that the Windies seamers extracted – especially the towering Garner – made simply surviving a badge of honour.

Jones, struck on the body second ball, did so for more than two-and-a-half hours before being dismissed, and he was the only other batter of the innings, apart from Border, to score more than 25.

After almost six hours at the crease, Border's innings came to an end simply because he ran out of batting partners, stranded two short of a deserved century after Australia's last two wickets fell in quick succession.

And when the Windies stormed to a 213-run lead on the first innings, Border reprised his role as Australia's sole survivor.

Image Id: DF11F33F76744FA0A1BEF4D935957027 Image Caption: Border was not out after more than 10 hours at the crease // Getty

The left-hander's one-man show lasted another 269 deliveries in the second innings, which this time saw him finish unbeaten on an even hundred as he and a brave lower order ground out a draw with just one wicket to spare.

When asked later if his match double of 198 runs scored, 583 balls faced and 639 minutes survived was his finest hour, Border is said to have quipped: "More like my finest 10 hours!".

But when Australia's dam wall finally broke in the third Test, not even Border could stop the mighty Windies, who stormed to a 3-0 series win.

So often a sole figure of defiance in a horror decade of Australian cricket, Trinidad 1984 was Border's pièce de resistance.

11) Adam Gilchrist

Second Test v India, Chennai, 2004

Batter's score: 49

Team score at start of innings: 1-53

Team score at end of innings: 4-145

Percentage of team total: 13.3

Highest score of the innings: 104

Match result: Match drawn

Series outcome: Australia won 2-1 (four matches)

By Martin Smith

It's a measure of how dearly Adam Gilchrist treasures his second-innings 49 in the 2004 Chennai Test that he values it more than any of the 47 occasions in his decorated Test career that he scored more than fifty.

Certainly, on the surface, a score of 49 in a team total of 369 barely deserves a second glance, and it's one of only two entries on this list of 15 that was not the highest score of the innings.

But the context of Gilchrist's 81-ball knock late on day three in the second Test of Australia's most precious series win of a storied generation is what sets it apart in the mind of its maker.

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Filling in as skipper in the absence of the injured Ricky Ponting, Gilchrist had to juggle the triple responsibility of captaincy, wicketkeeping and batting in arguably the toughest conditions in world cricket as Australia looked to conquer what had long been billed as their final frontier.

It was a task Gilchrist handled with aplomb in the opening Test in Bangalore, snapping a run of low scores by slamming a run-a-ball hundred as he and debutant Michael Clarke helped Australia take a 1-0 series lead.

But at the halfway point of the second Test, when Australia's day-one collapse of 8-46 and a hatful of dropped catches allowed India to take a lead of 141 on the first innings, it appeared normal order was about to be restored.

It was then that Gilchrist, despite his already enormous workload, decided to take it upon himself to change the course of the match.

Image Id: 6BB748060F6847CAA35012F031AADD2B Image Caption: The sweltering Chennai heat took a hold // Getty

Despite spending 134 overs behind the stumps in Chennai's energy-sapping heat during India's first innings, he opted against the cooler climes of the air-conditioned dressing-room and promoted himself to No.3 when Australia batted again.

It was a move that had worked to great effect in Sri Lanka earlier in the year, when he'd clubbed 144 from first drop in a game-changing partnership with Damien Martyn, and the dynamic left-hander again looked to drag his side back into the contest.

Gilchrist had extra reason to keep himself out of the firing line in that moment; having missed two chances with the gloves in India's innings, there was – he reflected in 2018 – "a significant amount of fairly scathing comment" about his ability to handle the workload.

And while the promotion up the order wasn't nearly as successful as it had been in Kandy seven months earlier, Gilchrist's nearly two-and-a-half hour stay at the crease played a role in Australia escaping from the match with their series lead intact.

Image Id: C00AB3B8ABCD4BD6A79E96ED03E6EBBC Image Caption: Gilchrist celebrates Australia's series-clinching win in Nagpur // Getty

His dismissal late on the third day, bowled around his legs by an Anil Kumble wrong-un, came after he had helped Australia claim a narrow lead, and was followed by Martyn's marathon century the following day that, in concert with a washed-out day five, saw the match finish in a draw.

And when Australia won the third Test a week later to seal their first series win in India for 35 years, the change of batting order in Chennai took on an even greater importance to Gilchrist, who told cricket.com.au in 2019 that the knock was his "favourite innings".

"I think that was probably one of my most important innings … (even though) there was nothing too sexy about it."

10) Shane Warne

Third Test v New Zealand, Perth, 2001

Batter's score: 99

Team score at start of innings: 6-192

Team score at end of innings: 351

Percentage of team total: 28.2

Next highest score: 75

Match result: Drawn

Series outcome: Drawn 0-0 (three matches)

By Adam Burnett

Australia's rain-interrupted three-Test series against the Black Caps culminated in Perth, where for the first time an attack featuring Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie had four individual hundreds scored against it in a single innings.

New Zealand piled on 9d-534 across most of the first two days, before Steve Waugh's relentlessly aggressive Australia charged out of the blocks to be 2-75 from 15 overs at stumps on day two.

But the following day saw wickets fall regularly, and when the hosts fell to 6-192, the mother of all upsets - and a rare series win for the Kiwis in Australia - appeared very much on the cards.

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Damien Martyn, the last batter standing, found a capable ally in Warne, and after the leg-spinner had a life on 10 when he was dropped by Nathan Astle, the two put together a vital stand of 78 before Martyn was out for 60 with Australia still trailing by 264.

As Warne's confidence and shot-making grew, so did his luck; on 51 he survived a caught-and-bowled chance that was spilled by Chris Cairns, and on 80 he was given the benefit of the doubt to what the Kiwis were convinced was an edge behind.

With Brett Lee (17) he put on 72 for the eighth-wicket, the pair pushing Australia beyond the prospect of having to follow-on for the first time in 144 Tests.

The final shot of Warne's remarkable 99 is the stuff of legend now, with a wild hoick off the bowling of Dan Vettori soaring high into the sky above the WACA Ground before being pouched by Mark Richardson at deep mid-wicket.

"It was pretty satisfying avoiding the follow-on," said Warne after play. "I played really well and always wanted to get a hundred.

"I will be lying in my bed tonight thinking about the different shots I could have played to get that one run.

"Obviously New Zealand are ahead but we are not out of it. We are still a chance if we bowl well."

Some time later it was revealed that Vettori had in fact overstepped, robbing Warne of what would have been his lone Test hundred.

Image Id: 450FD0A8CA7C4C88BC81F9DE746D8D1A Image Caption: Warne is congratulated by the Kiwis after falling for 99 // Getty

But in terms of the outcome of the match, Warne's work with the bat had already been decisive. New Zealand hurried along at 3.6 runs an over on day four to put themselves in a position to declare, setting the Australians an improbable 440 in the final three-and-a-half sessions of the match.

After an eventful final day, in which 312 runs were scored, five wickets fell and several decisions left the Kiwis wondering what might have been, honours ultimately finished even, though Adam Gilchrist at one point had other ideas, hammering 32 from nine balls before a couple of run-outs put paid to his ambitious plans.

That Australia could even contemplate winning at that stage was largely down to Warne's career-best effort with the bat, which also ensured the series finished level and the hosts avoided a first home Test defeat in three years. 

Return on Wednesday as we bring you Part 3 of 'Worth a ton: Top Aussie Test knocks under 100'