Stats: When two centuries were scored in a losing cause in ODIs

In the 4th ODI between India and Australia, Indian batsmen Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan scored centuries. Unfortunately, the twin hundreds by the two batsmen were not able to win the match for them. It was hard to believe that India went on to lose the game despite centuries from these two players.

Sachin, and now Rohit are quite infamous for their centuries ending on sad notes. However, Shikar Dhawan and Virat Kohli have been quite successful in tilting the balance of match in the favour of their team when they cross the triple figures.

Shikhar Dhawan had scored 8 tons before this one, and not a single among them failed him and his team. Virat Kohli, on the other hand, has scored 25 hundreds now and it was only his 4th hundred which could not win the game for his team.

Interestingly, three of his four centuries which ended on dismal note have come in January, and all the three matches either took place in Australia or New Zealand. His two hundreds while chasing have come on 19th and 20th day of the month, while other two when India batted first, came on 16th and 17th day of the month. Both of his hundreds in losing cause had exactly 11 boundaries.

So when two players, who when score individual centuries, see their team winning more often than not, fail to end on the victorious side despite making hundreds in the same innings is indeed hard to believe. This somehow reminds us of the match in Sydney between Australia and India where Yuvraj and Laxman scored centuries and yet could not win the game for their side.

What generally happens is that the team winning does not make a single century and yet the two centuries from the opposition go in vain. This happens because the whole team contributes to the winning effort while the losing sides on most occasions fall apart after the two centurions depart. This was what we witnessed yesterday.

Let us now see how often two batsmen from the same team have scored centuries in the same ODI and yet were not able to win the match for their team. It took more than 11 years from the time first ODI was played to witness such an incident.

For the first time, it happened in a match between the traditional rivals i.e. Pakistan and India. Since then, it happened only 23 times including the hundreds of Dhawan and Kohli.

	Batsmen	Runs	Balls	Strike Rate	Against Team	Ground	Date
1	Zaheer Abbas (Pak)	105	82	128.04	India	Lahore	31-Dec-82
	Javed Miandad (Pak)	119*	77	154.54
2	GR Marsh (Aus)	104	139	74.82	India	Jaipur	7-Sep-86
	DC Boon (Aus)	111	118	94.06
3	RJ Shastri (India)	109	149	73.15	South Africa	New Delhi	14-Nov-91
	SV Manjrekar (India)	105	82	128.04
4	M Azharuddin (India)	111*	117	94.87	Sri Lanka	Colombo (RPS)	17-Aug-97
	A Jadeja (India)	119	121	98.34
5	Saeed Anwar (Pak)	140	132	106.06	India	Dhaka	18-Jan-98
	Ijaz Ahmed (Pak)	117	112	104.46
6	Ijaz Ahmed (Pak)	111	109	101.83	Australia	Lahore	10-Nov-98
	Mohammad Yousuf (Pak)	100	111	90.09
7	G Kirsten (SA)	115	123	93.49	India	Kochi	9-Mar-00
	HH Gibbs (SA)	111	127	87.4
8	SC Ganguly (India)	127	126	100.79	South Africa	Johannesburg	5-Oct-01
	SR Tendulkar (India)	101	129	78.29
9	ME Trescothick (Eng)	109	100	109	India	Lord's	13-Jul-02
	N Hussain (Eng)	115	128	89.84
10	VVS Laxman (India)	106*	130	81.53	Australia	Sydney	22-Jan-04
	Yuvraj Singh (India)	139	122	113.93
11	SV Carlisle (Zim)	109	128	85.15	India	Adelaide	24-Jan-04
	SM Ervine (Zim)	100	100	100
12	AJ Strauss (Eng)	100	116	86.2	West Indies	Lord's	6-Jul-04
	A Flintoff (Eng)	123	104	118.26
13	G Gambhir (India)	103	97	106.18	Sri Lanka	Ahmedabad	6-Nov-05
	R Dravid (India)	103*	120	85.83
14	CH Gayle (WI)	101	128	78.9	England	Ahmedabad	28-Oct-06
	DJ Bravo (WI)	112*	124	90.32
15	WTS Porterfield (Ire)	104*	129	80.62	Kenya	Nairobi (Ruaraka)	2-Feb-07
	KJ O'Brien (Ire)	142	125	113.6
16	GM Hamilton (Scot)	119	152	78.28	Canada	Aberdeen	7-Jul-09
	DF Watts (Scot)	101	108	93.51
17	LRPL Taylor (NZ)	119	126	94.44	Zimbabwe	Bulawayo	25-Oct-11
	KS Williamson (NZ)	100*	69	144.92
18	GC Smith (SA)	125	143	87.41	Sri Lanka	Johannesburg	22-Jan-12
	AB de Villiers (SA)	125*	98	127.55
19	TM Dilshan (SL)	160*	165	96.96	India	Hobart	28-Feb-12
	KC Sangakkara (SL)	105	87	120.68
20	DA Warner (Aus)	100	140	71.42	Sri Lanka	Adelaide	6-Mar-12
	MJ Clarke (Aus)	117	91	128.57
21	Mohammad Hafeez (Pak)	105	113	92.92	India	Dhaka	18-Mar-12
	Nasir Jamshed (Pak)	112	104	107.69
22	SR Watson (Aus)	102	94	108.51	India	Nagpur	30-Oct-13
	GJ Bailey (Aus)	156	114	136.84
23	S Dhawan (India)	126	113	111.5	Australia	Canberra	20-Jan-16
	V Kohli (India)	106	92	115.21

- Before 2000, there were only 5 such instances. Since 2000, there have been 18 such occasions.

- The last such incident also came in an Aus-India match; It was played in 2013 at Nagpur when centuries from Watson and Bailey went in vain.

- First 7 occurrences were on Asian grounds and then next 5 were out of Asia.

- The first 5 instances had India either on the receiving end or on the winning side.

- 15 Times India has been involved in such happenings with 6 on the losing side and 9 on the winning side.

- 3 Times Australia have won such a game and lost it 3 times.

- Pakistan has never won a game when two batsmen make centuries against them. They have lost it on four occasions though despite two of their batsmen scoring centuries.

- 2 times this has happened at the grounds of each of these; Adelaide, Lahore, Dhaka and Ahmedabad, which is the joint-most.

- 4 times it happened in 2012 which is the most for a single calendar year.

- Twice it has happened two times in a single series - both times it was a triangular series in Australia, and it involved India. (VB Series 2004, Commonwealth Bank Series 2012)