Hughes leaves his mark at Kingsmead

9 Mar 2009

Phillip Hughes added another chapter to Sahara Stadium Kingsmead's history as a ground of landmarks when he became the youngest player ever to score a century in both innings of a Test match. In the process he beat a record that had stood behind the name of the great West Indian batsman, George Headley for almost 80 years.

Hughes' performance enabled Australia to close out the day at 292/3 in 87 overs for a daunting overall lead of 506 runs. The 20-year-old left-hander's contribution was an unbeaten 136 (301 balls, 13 fours and two sixes). It followed his 115 in the first innings.

Whether he will get the chance to increase his match aggregate of 251 remains to be seen as Ricky Ponting will no doubt mull overnight whether he wants to bat on.

Kingsmead has been the scene of many of cricket's great achievements such as Graeme Pollock's SA record 274 against Australia in 1970, Neil Harvey's unbeaten 150 to carry Australia to victory in 1950 with one of the finest winning fourth innings performances every produced, and, of course, the timeless Test in 1939 that went on for all of 10 days and produced the highest runs aggregate for any Test match and the highest fourth innings total of 654/5.

The landmark that will interest the Proteas the most occurred in the 1999 Test match when England forced South Africa to follow on and they managed to bat out time for an honourable draw on the back of Gary Kirsten's record-equaling score of 275 and the 108 from night watchman Mark Boucher.

It may be something Boucher will remind his team mates about before they take up whatever challenge Ponting sets them.

That fightback didn't end there as it laid the foundation for victory in the following Test at Sahara Park Newlands against what had become an exhausted England attack.

It is certainly going to require at least two of the Proteas' batsmen to go big and for the rest to bat around them. No mean task in the absence of Graeme Smith.

Boucher has taken over as stand-in captain - he led the Proteas to victory over Australia at the same ground when Shaun Pollock was injured in 2002 - with each batsman moving one place up the order which means that Hashim Amla will now open with Neil McKenzie with Jacques Kallis at No. 3.