5 England cricketers who scored a century on their captaincy debut

#3 Kevin Pietersen

Pietersen led England to only a solitary win

After Michael Vaughan resigned as the captain in the August of 2008, Kevin Pietersen was the only English cricketer deemed suitable as his successor. The 37-year-old, who scored 8,181 Test runs at 47.28 in 104 Tests, won the man-of-the-match on his first project as the England Test skipper.

His 137-ball 100 guided England to a win by six wickets against South Africa playing at The Oval. Although the hosts lost the series, Pietersen finished as the top runs-scorer with 421 runs in the four-Test series.

However, that was England’s solitary win under Pietersen’s captaincy because he led them in only two more games after the one at The Oval. His relationship with the coach, Peter Moores, was untenable and the rift forced Pietersen to resign as the skipper while Moores was also sacked on the same day. Andrew Strauss took on as a permanent captain in 2009.