Brian Lara became the seventh West Indian and only the 28th player in Test history to play hundred Tests. He achieved this feat when he took the field in the second Test against South Africa at Cape Town. Lara joined the ranks of six other West Indians, seven Englishmen, seven Australians, four Indians and three Pakistanis.

England's Michael Colin Cowdrey was the first player to complete his century of Test match appearances when he played at Birmingham against Australia in 1968.He also made his appearance memorable by scoring a century and reaching 7000 runs in Tests.

Cowdrey, Geoffrey Boycott, Dilip Vengsarkar, Kapil Dev, Alec Stewart and Carl Hooper all played their first as well as 100th Test against the same opponent. Allan Border, Javed Miandad and Carl Hooper made their first and 100th Test appearance on the same ground.

Mark Waugh took the shortest time to complete his 100 Tests -- 8 years and 342 days. At the other end of the scale,West Indies' Clive Lloyd took the longest time to do so- 17 years and 137 days.

Sachin Tendulkar was the youngest to appear in his 100th Test at 29 years 134 days while Geoff Boycott was the oldest to appear in his 100th Test at 40 years 254 days.

The accompanying table lists Test players completing 100 Tests in chronological order:

No.	Player (Country)	First Test	100th Test	Time Span
1	Colin Cowdrey (Eng)	Nov 26,1954	Jul 11,1968	13 yrs 228 days
		v Australia,Brisbane	v Australia,Birmingham
2	Geoff Boycott (Eng)	Jun 4,1964	Jul 2,1981	17 yrs 28 days
		v Australia,Nottingham	v Australia,Lord's
3	Clive Lloyd (WI)	Dec 13,1966	Apr 28,1984	17 yrs 137 days
		v India,Bombay	v Australia,Kingston
4	Sunil Gavaskar (Ind)	Mar 6,1971	Oct 17,1984	13 yrs 225 days
		v W.Indies,Port-of-Spain	v Pakistan,Karachi
5	David Gower (Eng)	Jun 1,1978	Jul 21,1988	10 yrs 50 days
		v Pakistan,Birmingham	v West Indies,Leeds
6	Viv Richards (WI)	Nov 22,1974	Nov 18,1988	13 yrs 362 days
		v India,Bangalore	v Australia,Brisbane
7	Dilip Vengsarkar (Ind)	Jan 24,1976	Nov 24,1988	12 yrs 305 days
		v New Zealand,Auckland	v New Zealand,Bombay
8	Allan Border (Aus)	Dec 29,1978	Dec 24,1988	9 yrs 361 days
		v England,Melbourne	v West Indies,Melbourne
9	Kapil Dev (Ind)	Oct 16,1978	Nov 15,1989	11 yrs 30 days
		v Pakistan,Faisalabad	v Pakistan,Karachi
10	Javed Miandad (Pak)	Oct 9,1976	Dec 1,1989	13 yrs 53 days
		v New Zealand,Lahore	India,Lahore
11	Gordon Greenidge (WI)	Nov 22,1974	Apr 13,1990	15 yrs 162 days
		v India,Bangalore	v England,St.John's
12	Desmond Haynes (WI)	Mar 3,1978	Jul 4,1991	13 yrs 123 days
		v Australia,Port-of-Spain	v England,Nottingham
13	Ian Botham (Eng)	Jul 28,1977	Feb 2,1992	14 yrs 189 days
		v Australia,Nottingham	v New Zealand,Wellington
14	Graham Gooch (Eng)	Jul 10,1975	Jan 29,1993	16 yrs 203 days
		v Australia,Birmingham	v India,Calcutta
15	David Boon (Aus)	Nov 23,1984	Apr 21,1995	10 yrs 139 days
		v West Indies,Brisbane	v W.Indies,Port-of-Spain
16	Steve Waugh (Aus)	Dec 26,1985	Jan 2,1998	12 yrs 7 days
		v India,Melbourne	v South Africa,Sydney
17	Ian Healy (Aus)	Sep 15,1988	Jan 30,1998	9 yrs 137 days
		v Pakistan,Karachi	v South Africa,Adelaide
18	Courtney Walsh	Nov 9,1984	Feb 27,1998	13 yrs 110 days
		v Australia,Perth	v England,Georgetown
19	Mark Taylor (Aus)	Jan 26,1989	Nov 20,1998	9 yrs 298 days
		v West Indies,Sydney	v England,Brisbane
20	Salim Malik (Pak)	Mar 5,1982	Dec 10,1998	16 yrs 280 days
		v Sri Lanka,Karachi	v Zimbabwe,Lahore
21	Mark Waugh (Aus)	Jan 25,1991	Jan 2,2000	8 yrs 342 days
		v England,Adelaide	v India,Sydney
22	Mike Atherton (Eng)	Aug 10,1989	Aug 3,2000	10 yrs 359 days
		v Australia,Nottingham	v West Indies,Manchester
23	Alec Stewart (Eng)	Feb 24,1990	Aug 3,2000	10 yrs 161 days
		v West Indies,Kingston	v West Indies,Manchester
24	Wasim Akram (Pak)	Jan 25,1985	Nov 29,2000	15 yrs 309 days
		v New Zealand,Auckland	v England,Faisalabad
25	Shane Warne (Aus)	Jan 2,1992	Mar 8,2002	10 yrs 65 days
		v India, Sydney	v South Africa,Cape Town
26	Sachin Tendulkar (Ind)	Nov 15,1989	Sep 5,2002	12 yrs 294 days
		v Pakistan,Karachi	v England, The Oval
27	Carl Hooper (WI)	Dec 11,1987	Oct 9,2002	15 yrs 302 days
		v India,Bombay	v India,Bombay
28	Brian Lara (WI)	Dec 6,1990	Dec 26,2003	13 yrs 20 days
		v Pakistan, Lahore	v South Africa,Cape Town