A HUNDRED CENTURIES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 30, 4 August 1923, Page 21

A HUNDRED CENTURIES

SCOEED BY JOHN BERRY HOBBS.

On Bth May John Berry Hobbs, of the Surrey county team,' who shares with 0... G. Macartney, the Australian, the distinction of being ono of the two finest batsmen-at present playing cricket, scored his hundredth century in first-class matches: Only W. G. Grace, with 126 centuries, and Tom Hay ward (Surrey), with 104 hundreds) have similar achievements to their immortal credit.

I calculate, writes "Googly" in the "Daily Mail"—and he agrees with me— that Hobbs has.run more than a hundred miles in performing the very rare feat.

His hundred centuries compriss all manner of scores of a hundred, riinsj or over, each. Some of his innings have totalled over two'hundred runs. Take a very modest estimate and say that his average "century" score works out at 125 runs per' innings. It is probably higher, but I prefer not to over-estimate. Now, 125 runs multiplied by 100 equals 12,500 runs. .

Say that forty of his runs in each century innings were boundary hits and entailed ho running. It is a modest assumption, ■• but a sjafe one. In 'each innings, therefore, he has run, on an average, eighty-five runs.

The bare minimum that a batsman covers is twenty yards per run. Twenty yards, eighty-'nve times, comes to 1700 yards. Throw in extra distances—for no batsman ever goes exactly from one batting-crease to another—and one may quitefeasonably say that Hobbs has-run a mile in each of his hundred centuries. Therefore, ho hajs run a hundred miles altogether. The .exact distance is undoubtedlyl .considerably greater, but ho be on the safe side I am taking minimums. To say how fast he has run is an impossibility.. He is .fast between wickets, not because he possesses any remarkable sprinting abilitj', but because he starts very quickly.and ; takes long. strides. With Rhodes or Sahdham as his partner his .skill'in "stealirjg short'runs x always'--^ Ijig'-featei-o Ji his game. •

But it 'V possible" to say with something approaching accuracy how long it •has taken him to score' these fhundred centuries. Hobbs is a quick scorer. Suppose ,we say that .his average time for an average innings of 125 runs has been three hours. In order words, he must have taken fully, three hundred hours to. put together his'hundred centuries.

„ Allowing .for 1 extra time- here and there, it' seems to be no exaggeration to say that Hobbs has given'up a fort.night of his life to what he has just accomplished.