Stats: Players with most Test centuries in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th innings

Ricky Ponting is the player who has scored most centuries in 1st innings in Tests

Every cricket player’s dream is to represent his country at Test level. After this achievement, every player’s dream is to make a century for his country in the longest format of the game and first Test century is always special.

Every Test century gives the player a newfound confidence and in Tests, he has the opportunity to make a century twice in a single match. While you might know who has the most centuries in Tests (no prizes for correctly guessing that it is Sachin Tendulkar), you might not know who has scored the most in each innings of a Test.

While you might assume that it is obvious that Sachin Tendulkar is the leader in all four innings, you might be surprised to find out that that is not the case. In fact, he only leads the charts in one of the four innings.

Finding it hard to believe? Here, we have presented tables for all four innings with top five players with most centuries in that particular Test innings.

Here is a table that includes players with most Test centuries in 1st innings.

Player name	Country	No.of Test centuries in 1st innings	No.of innings played in 1st innings	Runs	Average
Ricky Ponting	Australia	21	92	5403	61.39
Jacques Kallis	South Africa	20	80	4317	56.80
Sachin Tendulkar	India	20	91	5608	65.97
Steve Waugh	Australia	17	94	4855	62.24
Rahul Dravid	India	15	75	4121	57.23

The only list that Sachin tops is that of the most centuries in second innings. Here is the list of the top five players with most centuries in 2nd innings.

Player name	Country	No.of Test centuries in 2nd innings	No.of innings played in 2nd innings	Runs	Average
Sachin Tendulkar	India	18	106	5692	55.26
Rahul Dravid	India	15	88	4984	61.53
Mahela Jayawardena	Sri Lanka	15	74	4833	67.12
Jacques Kallis	South Africa	14	85	4202	53.18
Ricky Ponting	Australia	14	76	3969	52.92

Kumar Sangakkara, who is fourth on the list of most Test centuries, tops the list of batsmen with most tons in the 3rd innings.

Player name	Country	No.of Test centuries in 3rd innings	No.of innings played in 3rd innings	Runs	Average
Kumar Sangakkara	Sri Lanka	12	65	3406	56.76
Alastair Cook	England	11	53	2586	52.77
Matthew Hayden	Australia	10	42	2185	53.29
Jacques Kallis	South Africa	10	67	3394	65.26
Sachin Tendulkar	India	10	72	2996	46.81

It is a fourth different batsman who tops the list for most centuries in each innings. In the fourth innings, it is Pakistan's leading run-scorer in Tests, Younis Khan.

Player name	Country	No.of Test centuries in 4th innings	No.of innings played in 4th innings	Runs	Average
Younis Khan	Pakistan	5	33	1333	60.59
Sunil Gavaskar	India	4	33	1398	58.25
Ramnaresh Sarwan	West Indies	4	36	1241	37.60
Graeme Smith	South Africa	4	40	1611	53.70
Ricky Ponting	Australia	4	43	1462	50.41

As far as combined 1^st and 2^nd innings centuries are concerned Sachin Tendulkar has scored more centuries (38) than Ricky Ponting (35), Jacques Kallis (34), Rahul Dravid (30) and Steve Waugh (30).

Sachin also heads the table of most 2^nd and 3^rd innings centuries with 28. Kumar Sangakkara (25), Jacques Kallis (24), Alastair Cook (20), Rahul Dravid (20) and Brian Lara (20) round off the top five.

When we look at 3^rd and 4^th innings ,then Kumar Sangakkara is the player who has scored more centuries (14) than any other batsmen.

Although Sachin has only scored three test tons in the fourth innings, nobody has scored more than his 48, in the first three innings of a Test.