Colin Cowdrey's 100th Test — First Man to Play a Hundred Test Matches, December 1968

Test cricket had expanded significantly since the 1950s, with more series and more matches per series; Cowdrey's 100 Tests over 16 years was at the rapid pace of the expanding Test calendar.

Cowdrey's 100th Test cap was a milestone the cricket world had been anticipating for several months. He had made his Test debut in 1954 against Australia and had played continuously since, interrupted only by injury and occasional selection controversy. The Lahore Test in December 1968 was arranged partly to give him a hundred-cap occasion in a relatively secure fixture; Pakistan, playing in their home conditions, were unlikely to produce the kind of brutal pace attack that might have ruined the occasion. Both teams provided a guard of honour when Cowdrey walked out to bat; the Pakistani crowd cheered him warmly. He scored 41 in the first innings — not a landmark innings, but a dignified one. He received a telegram of congratulations from Buckingham Palace. He went on to play 114 Tests in total, scoring 7,624 runs at 44.06 with 22 hundreds — an England record that stood until it was surpassed by Boycott and then Graham Gooch. His most famous innings — 154 against the West Indies at Edgbaston in 1957 on a difficult pitch — was rated by Len Hutton as the finest he had ever seen.