Gary Ballance becomes second player in Test history to set rare record

Gary Ballance, who represented England 42 times across all three formats, scored a superb century for Zimbabwe on the fourth day of the first Test against West Indies in Bulawayo on Tuesday. The 33-year-old’s hundred was the fifth of his Test career, but his first for Zimbabwe after officially moving to represent the country of his birth last year.

On his Zimbabwe Test debut against the West Indies, Ballance achieved a rare record. The southpaw's scintillating 137 unbeaten runs mean he is just the second player in the history of the game to have scored Test centuries for two different nations. Former Australia and South Africa international Kepler Wessels was the first one to two achieve the feat. He hit four Test hundreds for Australia and two for South Africa.

Ballance played 23 Test matches for England 2014 and 2017 and scored 1498 runs at an average of 37.45. He was the third fastest batter in England men’s history to reach 1000 Test runs, but he was dropped in 2017 after a dip in his form.

He became eligible to play for Zimbabwe in 2021 after a long spell away from cricket. In December 2022 he announced that he had made himself available to play for Zimbabwe, the country where he was born, grew up, and played cricket at youth level.

“The opportunity to represent Zimbabwe has given me a new-found passion and excitement for the game,” the batter said on revealing his decision to switch national teams.

"I have kept in touch with a number of people within Zimbabwe cricket over the years and it has been great to watch their recent progress especially."

The hundred helped Zimbabwe declared their innings at 379/9 in reply to West Indies's first innings total of 447 for the loss of six wickets.

Notably, Ballance featured in a T20I and two ODIs for Zimbabwe in January prior to his selection for the Test series against West Indies. He scored 30 off 29 balls in his Zimbabwe debut which came against Ireland in a T20I match on January 12. In his ODI debut on January 18 he scored 23 runs before slamming a fifty in the second match against Ireland.