Steven Smith becomes the first player to score a century on Test and ODI captaincy debuts

Steven Smith

Steven Smith is form of his life at present. He is been scoring runs with ease. He scored a century in the Ashes in England, two centuries in Ashes in Australia and then a century in South Africa as well. There were never many predictions that he will be the next Aussie captain. He scored an unbeaten 162 and unbeaten 52 in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at Adelaide to continue his form.

Michael Clarke was ruled out of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy due to the injury and Brad Haddin was expected to captain in his absence. But a brave decision from the Australian Cricket Board changed the picture. They gave a chance to young Steve Smith to lead their national team. And he continued to pile up runs. He scored 133 runs in his first Test inning as captain and scored 192 and 117 in the next two Tests of the series against India.

Steven Smith became the ninth Aussie to score a century in his first Test match as captain and the fifth Aussie to do in his first inning as captain.

Century on captaincy debut for Australia in Tests

Batsman	Runs	Against	Venue	Date
WL Murdoch	0, 153*	England	The Oval	September 6, 1880
GHS Trott	0, 143	England	Lord's	June 22, 1896
MA Noble	133, 22	England	Sydney	December 11, 1903
C Hill	191	South Africa	Sydney	December 9, 1910
WW Armstrong	12, 158	England	Sydney	December 17, 1920
AL Hassett	112	South Africa	Johannesburg	December 24, 1949
GS Chappell	123, 109*	West Indies	Brisbane	November 28, 1975
GN Yallop	7, 102	England	Brisbane	December 1, 1978
SPD Smith	133, 28	India	Brisbane	December 17, 2014

Century on captaincy debut for other teams in Tests

The table below lists the players who scored centuries in their first test as captain for the rest of the teams excluding Australia.

For	Batsman	Runs	Against	Venue	Date
England (5)	AC McLaren	109, 50*	Australia	Sydney	December 13, 1897
	AJ Lamb	119, 10	West Indies	Bridgetown	April 5, 1990
	AJ Strauss	30, 128	Pakistan	Lord's	July 13, 2006
	KP Pietersen	100, 13	South Africa	The Oval	August 7, 2008
	AN Cook	173, 39	Bangladesh	Chittagong	March 12, 2010
India (4)	VS Hazare	164*	England	Delhi	November 2, 1951
	SM Gavaskar	116, 35*	New Zealand	Auckland	January 24, 1976
	DB Vengsarkar	10, 102	West Indies	Delhi	November 25, 1987
	V Kohli	115, 141	Australia	Adelaide	December 9, 2014
New Zealand (4)	GO Rabone	107, 68	South Africa	Durban	December 11, 1953
	GT Dowling	239, 5	India	Christchurch	February 22, 1968
	BE Congdon	126, 61*	West Indies	Bridgetown	March 23, 1972
	JJ Crowe	120*, 16	Sri Lanka	Colombo (CCC)	April 16, 1987
South Africa (2)	HW Taylor	109, 8	England	Durban	December 13, 1913
	DJ McGlew	104*, 48	England	Manchester	July 7, 1955
West Indies (3)	JB Stollmeyer	10, 104	Australia	Sydney	January 25, 1952
	CH Lloyd	30, 163	India	Bangalore	November 22, 1974
	S Chanderpaul	203*	South Africa	Georgetown	March 31, 2005
Zimbabwe (2)	DL Houghton	121, 41*	India	Harare	October 18, 1992
	BRM Taylor	71, 105*	Bangladesh	Harare	August 4, 2011

Century on ODI captaincy debut

Like in Tests, Steven Smith scored runs in ODIs as well. Before the Triangular series against India and England, Smith had scored two centuries and three half-centuries in seven ODIs of the series against Pakistan and South Africa.

As George Bailey was unfit for the ODI against England at Hobart, Steven Smith was given the task of leading the side. And he grabbed it well by scoring a century in this as well. He had already scored a century in his first test as captain and now did the same in his first ODI as captain.

Steven Smith became the first player ever to score centuries in first Test and ODI as captain. He emulated Mike Hussey to become the second player from Australia to score century in first ODI as captain.

29 players have scored centuries in their first test as captain but only eight in ODIs. The table lists those eight below

Batsman	Runs	For	Against	Venue	Date
GM Turner	171*	New Zealand	East Africa	Birmingham	07-Jun-75
RB Richardson	106*	West Indies	Pakistan	Sharjah	17-Oct-91
SR Tendulkar	110	India	Sri Lanka	Colombo (RPS)	28-Aug-96
ST Jayasuriya	102	Sri Lanka	Zimbabwe	Colombo (SSC)	26-Jan-98
IH Romaine	101	Bermuda	Canada	Toronto	21-Aug-06
MEK Hussey	109*	Australia	West Indies	Kuala Lumpur	18-Sep-06
GM Hamilton	119	Scotland	Canada	Aberdeen	07-Jul-09
SPD Smith	102*	Australia	England	Hobart	23-Jan-15