Centuries around the world

The entry about Jason Gillespie batting triple got me thinking. Which players have scored centuries in the most different competitions worldwide? And, also who has centuries in the most different countries?

Some rules are needed to define competitions. I have grouped competitions by country, i.e. Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Trophy all count under ‘Indian Domestic Competitions’. Likewise for SuperSport Series. Howa Bowl, SAA Provincial, etc as ‘South African Domestic competitions’. So, counting Test cricket and domestic competitions in the 10 ICC Full Members countries there are potentially 11 different ‘competitions’ that a player can appear in under this definition. First-class friendlies, tour matches etc are excluded.

And the winners are: Rohan Kanhai, Alvin Kallicharran and Murray Goodwin. All three have made centuries in 5 different competitions. Kanhai scored 15 Test centuries, 32 for Warwickshire in the County Championship, 2 in the Sheffield Shield for Western Australia in 1961/62, 4 in the Shell Shield for his native Guyana and 3 in successive innings for Transvaal in a highly successful season in the SACBOC Dadabhay Trophy in 1974/75. Kallicharran had the same collection as Kanhai – Tests, Shell Shield, County Championship, Sheffield Shield and South Africa. His South African ones were for Transvaal and Orange Free State on the other side of the apartheid fence. Goodwin swapped Zimbabwe for West Indies in his list, scoring a century for Mashonaland v Matabeleland in his brief Logan Cup career of 2 matches. If he is aware of this list, I wonder if he is contemplating signing for Dhaka Division, Mumbai, Canterbury, Faisalabad or Jamaica on a short contract? Or, perhaps, the Chilaw Marians in Sri Lanka?

The answer to the second question of first-class centuries in most countries is Rahul Dravid and Inzamam-ul-Haq who have both scored centuries in each of the 10 Test-playing countries (West Indies counting as one country). There are a number of players with centuries in 9 different countries. By far the most interesting of these is Bob Wyatt. I have cheated a bit to include him, as his centuries in ‘Pakistan’ were made when that country was still part of India. Wyatt scored 73 of his 85 centuries in England and spread his other 12 between Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka (Ceylon as it was), Argentina (Yes … Argentina) and Ireland. He also played first-class cricket in West Indies, Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia in his days) and Burma (Myanmar) without scoring a century in any of then, although he made fifties in all three. That’s a lot of time spent on a boat representing MCC and various other teams, including Sir TEW Brinckman's XI in Argentina. His first-class career comprised 739 matches in 34 years from 1923 to 1957. He played 40 Tests for England (16 as captain) and lived to a ripe old age, dying just 12 days before his 94th birthday in 1995.