Flashback: Only two players to score centuries for two teams in Tests
International Cricket Council (ICC) has been soft with regulations for the player representing more than one nation in international cricket. According to ICC rules, a player featured for a full-time member nation has to wait for three years since his last international match to play for another full-time member country. But a player who has represented an associate country can play for the full-time country anytime.
Playing Tests for two teams
Since the first international cricket match in 1877, only 16 male cricketers have played Test cricket for two different teams. Billy Midwinter was the first cricket to play a Test for two different nations. He played for Australia in 1877 and then represented England in 1881-82 and again featured for Australia.
In this century, only two cricketers have played Tests for two different nations so far. Boyd Rankin represented England and Ireland and most recently, the former England cricketer Gary Ballance played for Zimbabwe. But despite 16 players representing two nations in Tests, only two cricketers have scored centuries for the two countries so far.
Centuries for two Test teams
Kepler Wessels, born in South Africa, played 24 Test matches for Australia, before turning in up for South Africa in 1991. He captained an inexperienced South African team in the 1992 World Cup and also became South Africa’s first Test captain of the modern era.
Wessels, the left-handed opener, scored 162 on his Test debut for Australia in November 1982 and scored 70* in his final Test for Australia in 1985. He played 24 Tests for Australia and recorded four Test hundreds. After making his debut for South Africa, he scored two more centuries in Test cricket, before announcing his retirement in 1994. He is the only cricketer to score more than one century for two nations in Test cricket.
Ballance joins the list
Ballance became the latest cricketer to represent two nations in Test cricket when he featured for Zimbabwe against West Indies in February 2023. He was born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe, and moved to England to 2006, at the age of 17. Ballance made his Test debut for England in 2014 and enjoyed a terrific start.
He scored over 1000 runs at an average of 67.93 from his first ten Tests for England. But managed to score only 481 in his next 13 Tests, and eventually lost his place in the team. He last played Test for England in July 2017 and scored 1398 runs with four hundreds and seven fifties.
The 33-year-old left-handed batter signed a two-year contract with Zimbabwe Cricket in December 2022 and made his debut in their ongoing Test series against West Indies in February 2023. Balance, playing in no.5 position, scored unbeaten 137 off 231 on his debut for Zimbabwe in the first innings and added 18 more in the second innings in a drawn first match in Bulawayo.
