Almost making Hay when the sun shines

Greg Hay scored 99 and 95* for Central Districts against Northern Districts in a State Championship match at Hamilton last week. Two scores in the nineties in one match is pretty rare: Only 57 such occurrences in first-class cricket.

Hay also scored 98* on his first-class debut v Wellington at Wellington last season.
There are 169 players who have made a score in the nineties on first-class debut. But Hay is only the 3rd player to appear in both of these lists. He has joined West Indies Test cricketer John Holt and Tanvir Razzaq of Pakistan. Holt scored 94 on first-class debut for Jamaica v Trinidad and Tobago at Kingston in 1946 and 92 & 94* for West Indians v Baroda at Baroda in 1958/59. Tanvir Razzaq went one better than both of these by getting his two scores in the nineties on his first-class debut: 98 and 90 for Water and Power Development Authority v Lahore City at Lahore in 1984/85. You will be pleased to know that all three of these players did score first-class centuries, Holt getting 2 of his in Tests.

Holt scored 1066 runs at 36.75 in 17 Tests in the 1950s, amazingly including another 94 on debut. (Maybe one day, when I really have nothing better to do, I might research players who made the same score on Test debut and first-class debut).

Despite the title of this post, it was not likely that the sun was shining much for any of Hay’s innings. The sun is not in the habit of making too many appearances in New Zealand.