Worth a ton: Top Aussie Test knocks under 100, Part 5

It has forever been a peculiarity of cricket, a sport so infatuated by numbers, that the difference between 99 and 100 is so much more than just a single run.

Part 1: Gilchrist, Khawaja & Smith | Part 2: Border, Gilchrist & Warne | Part 3: Renshaw/Starc, Harris & Waugh | Part 4: Healy, Nevill & Labuschagne

Batting greatness is often measured in hundreds made as much as runs scored, which can mean the value of some decisive batting performances over the years has been diminished simply because they have fallen short of the magical three figures.

This week, cricket.com.au has looked back on Australia's 15 most important sub-100 innings in men's Test matches of the past 40 years, acknowledging the gritty half-centuries and backs-to-the wall innings that won Test matches, saved series and defined careers but don't appear in that all-important hundreds column.

The criteria

When ranking these performances, extra weight was given to those knocks that have taken on a greater significance beyond solely the substance of the innings itself; runs that paved the way for a breakthrough series win, led to a rare Test victory abroad or secured a face-saving draw.

It means performances like Ashton Agar's 98 on Test debut in 2013, while an instant Ashes classic, was not included as it came in a match and series that Australia lost, and Agar himself was dropped just two Tests later.

We've set the qualification time period at the past four decades, since 1982, and considered only sub-100 scores by Australians in men's Test matches.

3) Brad Haddin

First Test v England, Brisbane, 2013

Batter's score: 94

Team score at start of innings: 5-100

Team score at end of innings: 295

Percentage of team total: 31.8

Next highest score: 64

Match result: Australia won by 381 runs

Series outcome: Australia won 5-0 (five matches)

By Martin Smith

At the end of Australia's Ashes whitewash in 2013-14, English broadcaster Jonathan Agnew created a minor stir when he suggested Mitchell Johnson should not have been named player of the series despite a memorable campaign that netted a record 37 wickets in five Tests.

The award, Agnew said, should instead have gone to Brad Haddin.

"It is just about possible that Australia would still have won the Ashes without Mitchell Johnson," Agnew reasoned. "But they could not have done it without the consistent contributions of Haddin at number seven."

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In four of the five Tests that summer, Australia lost five wickets for less than 150 runs in their first innings. And in all four of those Tests, Haddin scored a half-century from No.7 in the order, giving Johnson enough runs on the board to produce his golden summer.

And on the one occasion Haddin came to the middle after the Aussies had made a strong start with the bat, he reached three figures.

The most decisive of Haddin's contributions came on the opening day of the Test summer, before Johnson's destruction had begun.

Just months after England had retained the urn with a 3-0 series win in the UK, the Australians were again on the back foot when Stuart Broad triggered a collapse of 4-29 either side of the lunch break at the Gabba.

A score of 5-100 became 6-132 when Haddin was joined by Johnson for a pivotal century stand that steered the Australians to 8-273 by the close.

In his 50th Test, Haddin refused to be restrained by the state of the match and took some calculated risks early in his innings, swiping across the line at Graeme Swann and pulling the quicks with vigour, including one shot off Jimmy Anderson that sailed over the rope at deep square leg.

Emboldened by Haddin's approach, Johnson went on the attack himself, hitting Swann for a boundary in five consecutive overs as he lofted the off-spinner down the ground.

The arrival of the second new ball helped Broad claim his fifth wicket late in the day and while Haddin remained unbeaten on 78 at the close, the general feeling was that England had the better of the opening day after losing the toss.

Haddin fell six runs short of a deserved century the following morning when he ran himself out attempting to retain the strike with only No.11 Nathan Lyon for company, but a total of 295 was much more than Australia would have hoped for after Broad's burst the previous day.

The rest is Ashes history; Johnson's terrifying nine-wicket haul set the scene for a dominant series that will linger long in the memory as Australia stormed to a second home series sweep in three attempts.

But while Johnson's mustachioed dominance will be the enduring image of that campaign, Haddin's role with the bat should not be underestimated.

In seven innings, the right-hander posted scores of 94, 53, 118, 55, 5, 65 and 75, becoming the first player to score at least a half-century in all five Ashes Tests since Keith Stackpole more than 40 years earlier.

Image Id: F4FAA7861F544066AAF0137C814A9BDE Image Caption: Haddin goes on the attack at the Gabba // Getty

But it was the counter-attacking manner in which he played, which yielded a series strike rate of 71, that proved the most telling.

"When he came in and started hitting it back over your head, you stand there scratching your head, thinking, 'this isn't meant to happen'," England allrounder Ben Stokes said after Haddin's quickfire 75 in the final Test in Sydney.

"He's taken every chance to get runs.

"It's just the way he comes out and plays his natural game straight away, whatever the situation is.

"When a guy is playing like that, I guess you have to hold your hands up."

2) Mike Hussey

First Test v Sri Lanka, Galle, 2011

Batter's score: 95

Team score at start of innings: 3-91

Team score at end of innings: 273 all out

Percentage of team total: 34.8

Next highest score: 44

Match result: Australia won by 125 runs

Series outcome: Australia won 1-0 (three matches)

By Adam Burnett

Until Pat Cummins' side's landmark victory in Pakistan in March, this 1-0 series success in Sri Lanka was Australia's lone Asian triumph in the past 15 years, and new skipper Michael Clarke could direct much of his thanks to the brilliant Mike Hussey.

As Clarke's first Test as full-time skipper, and with a pair of debutants in Nathan Lyon and Trent Copeland in their bowling attack, the series marked a new era for the men in Baggy Green, who had been humbled at home the previous summer in a 3-1 Ashes defeat.

The Sri Lanka assignment was their first series since, and when Clarke won the toss and elected to bat on a wet morning in Galle, the tourists had high hopes of new beginnings.

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As it unfolded, and on what Hussey described at the time as the "driest" day-one Test surface he had encountered, the Australians found themselves undone by the same factors that had haunted them against England; spin and reverse swing.

Hussey joined Ricky Ponting in the middle after lunch, replacing Clarke, who had become left-arm spinner Rangana Herath's second victim of the day when he was struck on the pad dead in front.

Twelve overs later, Ponting was another to fall to Herath, and so began a trend that continued through much of the Australian innings; a partnership ended just as it had begun to look promising.

Throughout, a watchful Hussey negotiated the triple spin threat of Herath, Suraj Randiv and Tillakaratne Dilshan with adept footwork – both forward and back – and effective employment of the sweep shot.

Image Id: 4349E3F362BF45DABE23D4B3999E7901 Image Caption: Hussey scored almost 35 per cent of Australia's runs in the first innings // Getty

Against Suranga Lakmal, who found some reverse swing, the left-hander scored just one boundary from 21 balls faced, and to offer context as to how difficult batting became, that glide through a vacant third man broke a stretch of 83 deliveries without finding the rope.

Hussey's half-century arrived via a boundary driven through mid-off from Randiv, and was greeted with warm applause from his teammates on the viewing balcony.

Thereafter, he took a liking to the offerings of the off-spinner, advancing regularly and depositing him for a treble of sixes – one over long-on and two over long-off. The second of those almost didn't make it; it was well caught on the boundary by pace bowler Chanaka Welegedara, who then mis-stepped onto the rope to give the batter a life on 76.

As the day drew to a close and Hussey found himself in a final-wicket stand with the debutant Lyon, he played and missed at a Dilshan arm ball and was adjudged lbw for 95, having taken his team from 3-91 to a competitive 273 all out.

Image Id: 0B92495B531C4326BA7430E4DBA34D80 Image Caption: Hussey reverse sweeps on a dry track in Galle // Getty

On day two, Lyon came to the party with a five-wicket haul to roll Sri Lanka for 105, and when the Australians were able to put together 210 in the second innings, the hosts' target of 379 always appeared fanciful.

Despite stout resistance from Mahela Jayawardene (105) and Angelo Mathews (95), it was Ryan Harris (5-62) who spearheaded a memorable success for the visitors before tea on the fourth day.

Hussey had enjoyed success in Asia before; as one of Australia's premier modern-day players of spin, the left-hander's game was well suited to the conditions. In 2006, he made 182 against Bangladesh in Chattogram, and two years later he scored 146 against India in Bengaluru, before making 54, 53 and 90 on the same tour.

But with scores of 142, 118 and 93 in the drawn second and third Tests, the 2011 Sri Lanka series would become his finest hour on the subcontinent.

And given his 95 on that very first day ultimately led to what was Australia's only series win in Asia in a decade-and-a-half, it sits among Australia's most decisive sub-century scores of recent times.

1) Steve Waugh

Third Test v West Indies, Trinidad, 1995

Batter's score: 63no

Team score at start of innings: 3-14

Team score at end of innings: 128

Next highest score: 18

Match result: Australia lost by nine wickets

Series outcome: Australia won 2-1 (four matches)

By Martin Smith

It's telling that the only innings on this list to come in a defeat has finished in the number one spot, but such is the symbolic magnitude of Steve Waugh's fighting knock in the 1995 Trinidad Test.

On a pitch in Port-of-Spain that was so green Windies captain Richie Richardson would later declare it unfit for Test cricket – the Australians also joked that the groundsman's mower must have been broken – the hosts elected to bowl first and quickly took three wickets to bring Waugh to the middle to face a rampant Curtly Ambrose.

The significance of the occasion, with Australia leading 1-0 in the series and the Windies looking to defend their 15-year unbeaten run, was not lost on Waugh, who had come in for heavy criticism across the region after claiming a contentious catch in the opening Test of the series.

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"I was a bit on edge," Waugh recalled to cricket.com.au 25 years later.

"Every time I was on the street, I was getting threatened or getting phone calls in the hotel, and then getting booed when I went out to bat.

"Ambrose, at the same time, was under pressure from the press in the Caribbean. They thought he was past his best and were asking was he still good enough to be at that level.

"At the time, I saw it as the biggest Test match of my career."

After a few rounds of shadow boxing, Waugh's contest with Ambrose brought the crowd to its feet in the 14th over when the Australian safely evaded a bouncer from the Windies spearhead, which was followed by Ambrose's trademark glare and extended follow through.

"I thought he went on with the silent assassin-style interrogation for longer (than) was necessary," Waugh would later write in his tour diary. 

So the Australian, famously, fired back.

The exchange between the pair, cobbled together from Waugh's diary and his autobiography, is said to have gone something like this:

Waugh: What the f**k are you looking at?

Ambrose: Don't cuss me, man.

Waugh: Why don't you go and get f**ked?

By Waugh's own admission, it wasn't the most inventive or witty exchange ever uttered on a cricket field. But it was enough to push Ambrose to near breaking point.

"No-one had ever been stupid enough to speak to him like that," Waugh wrote. "His eyeballs were spinning and as he edged to within a metre, it seemed he was ready to erupt."

The image of Richardson grabbing Ambrose by the left arm and attempting to drag him away from Waugh remains a defining moment of that tour, and the Australian's career.

Image Id: C70BFDA9C26641A39FBB528BF1D6DD47 Image Caption: An iconic moment in Trinidad // Getty

After Richardson and umpire David Shepperd had intervened to prevent an already heated situation from escalating further, Ambrose – to no great surprise – wasted no time in delivering his second short ball of the over. But, unlike the one that preceded it, this bumper was well directed and struck Waugh on the gloves before landing safely on the off side.

"(It) was probably the quickest, nastiest ball of my whole career," Waugh recalled.

"I played it with my gloves in front of my face, maybe even above my helmet. We were both fired up for the occasion and knew the significance of the Test match. That passage of play could determine the whole series."

Another extended follow through from Ambrose and a look that would have reduced a lesser man to tears was met with not much more than a blank stare from Waugh, who nonchalantly chewed gum and adjusted his protector, all the while making sure he maintained eye contact with his opponent.

Image Id: 4C32481AF97B4D799641C99913FE6A79 Image Caption: Waugh survived for more than three hours on a spicy Trinidad pitch // Getty

And the moment was not lost on the Windies players.

"It showed that the fear teams had for the West Indies attack in the past was no longer there," paceman Winston Benjamin would tell cricket.com.au in 2020.

Waugh would finish unbeaten on 63 from more than three hours at the crease, but Ambrose's five-wicket haul helped rout the visitors for just 128. The towering Antiguan would finish the match, which lasted only 163.5 overs in total, with 9-65 as the Windies won by nine wickets to square the series.

It may have come in a losing cause, but Waugh's performance proved to be a turning point in his career.

He hit a double-century in the fourth Test in Jamaica the following week as Australia secured the victory they needed to win the Frank Worrell Trophy for the first time in 17 years.

Image Id: A12E0B4EF3634DDCA121F864D4339CC0 Image Caption: Waugh celebrates his series-clinching innings in Jamaica // Getty

It was Waugh's eighth hundred of a Test career that was already into its 10th year. In the ensuing nine years, he posted another 24 centuries to stamp himself as a great of the game.

And for pure symbolism, the confrontation with Ambrose in Trinidad would long remain his defining moment.

"That was an unbelievable knock … (it) was worth 120," teammate Brendon Julian would recall.

"It was one of the best digs I've seen."

Part 1: Gilchrist, Khawaja & Smith | Part 2: Border, Gilchrist & Warne | Part 3: Renshaw/Starc, Harris & Waugh | Part 4: Healy, Nevill & Labuschagne