Who is the only person to have scored a century on Test debut for South Africa?
(02 November 2001)

The first South African to score a hundred in Tests was Jimmy Sinclair who played 25 between 1896 and 1911, scoring 1069 runs at 23.23. It was against England in April 1899 that Sinclair made 106, the first Test hundred by a South African. This was also Sinclair's first hundred in first-class cricket. He had earlier claimed six wickets in England's first innings. All that can be furnished by way of explanation is that Big daddy Sinclair, probably couldn't help being the first in a long line of South African all-rounders.

Since Sinclair, South Africa produced a host of great cricketers George Aubrey Faulkner, Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards and Mike Procter among others. But none of these great men could cross the century-mark in their first Test.

It was finally left to a solid and conservative opener from KwaZulu-Natal, Andrew Charles Hudson, to make a hundred in his first knock in the Test arena. Playing against a West Indies pace battery that included Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Patrick Patterson at Bridgetown in April 1992, Hudson made a patient though impressive 163. His heroics though couldn't save his side from a 52-run defeat. Incidentally, the long- time partner of Gary Kirsten remains the only South African to score a hundred on debut...

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