Triple threat: The 14 batsmen with international hundreds in all three formats

Kevin O’Brien has become the 14th man, and Ireland’s first, to score centuries in all three international formats after making 124 in a T20I against Hong Kong.

He joins a list including a West Indian, two New Zealanders, three Indians, a couple of Sri Lankans, a pair of Aussies, a Bangladeshi, a South African, a Pakistani… and no Englishmen.

Here they all are, along with those who’ve so far come closest for the three Test nations not yet represented in this particular club – which are (hilariously) England and (more understandably) Zimbabwe and Afghanistan.

Chris Gayle (West Indies)
First Test hundred: 175 v Zimbabwe, July 2001
First ODI hundred: 152 v Kenya, August 2001
First T20I hundred: 117 v South Africa, September 2007

The only player to complete the all-format batting Grand Slam – Test triple hundred, ODI double hundred, T20I hundred. It’s a thing. We’re making it a thing. If only so we can call Chris Gayle the greatest batsman ever to play the game and then sit back and enjoy the response. He is undoubtedly the greatest T20 batsman of all time and boasts a Test record – 7000+ runs, 100+ matches, 42+ average – that plenty of five-day-only specialists would happily take for their own.

Brendon McCullum (New Zealand)
First Test hundred: 143 v Bangladesh, October 2004
First ODI hundred: 166 v Ireland, July 2008
First T20I hundred: 116* v Australia, February 2010

Just 34 runs away from a place in Chris Gayle’s Grand Slam club due to an ODI best of ‘only’ 166. We haven’t checked everyone, but we think Virender Sehwag – two of the three ticked off and 32 runs away in the other thanks to a T20 best of 68 – is the only player closer, and he doesn’t even get into the all-format hundreds club. Nor, for that matter, does Sanath Jayasuriya, who is agonisingly only 23 runs shy of a spot but spread across ODIs (189) and T20s (88). Anyway. McCullum. Of course he’s here in this list, smashing the thing around like a maniac. But a nice, friendly one. Like Gayle, a white-ball specialist who accidentally has a very fine record across over 100 Test matches.

Mahela Jayawardene (Sri Lanka)
First Test hundred: 167 v New Zealand, June 1998
First ODI hundred: 120 v England, January 1999
First T20I hundred: 100 v Zimbabwe, May 2010

The classy right-hander knocked off the first two-thirds of the task with swift, almost indecent ease at the start of his international career and then had to sit and wait six years just for T20 to be invented so he could set about completing the set. Took him a good few years, but he got there. Just. And as for Chris Gayle’s Grand Slam Club: misses out by 56 runs – nothing better than a measly 144 in ODIs for Mahela.

Suresh Raina (India)
First Test hundred: 120 v Sri Lanka, July 2010
First ODI hundred: 101 v Hong Kong, June 2008
First T20I hundred: 101 v South Africa, May 2010

Fitting indeed that India’s greatest ever batsman should be the first from his country to score a century in all three formats. The GOAT. Scored 120 in his first Test innings. Didn’t score another hundred in his other 30. Scored his maiden hundreds in all three formats across a span of barely two years, which is pretty decent. One of only two players on this list to complete the set with his Test century.

Tillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka)
First Test hundred: 163* v Zimbabwe. November 1999
First ODI hundred: 117* v Netherlands, July 2006
First T20I hundred: 104* v Australia, August 2011

For someone who would go on to be remembered as a great innovator and white-ball champion, Dilshan got his first Test hundred almost seven years before his first against the white ball. It took 94 ODIs for Dilly to reach three-figures, and another 60 to get his second. Then scored another 20 of them in his remaining 176. Is it too simplistic to note the dividing line between those two sections of Dilshan’s career split either side of 2005 and the birth of the international format that would ultimately define him? Probably is, yeah.

Martin Guptill (New Zealand)
First Test hundred: 189 v Bangladesh, February 2010
First ODI hundred: 122* v West Indies, January 2009
First T20 hundred: 101* v South Africa, December 2012

The only man to have scored centuries in more international cricket formats than he has toes on his left foot.

Ahmed Shehzad (Pakistan)
First Test hundred: 147 v Sri Lanka, January 2014
First ODI hundred: 115 v New Zealand, February 2011
First T20 hundred: 111* v Bangladesh, March 2014

Excellent Test record, Shehzad: 25 innings, three reasonably chunky hundreds, nine scores below 10.

Faf du Plessis (South Africa)
First Test hundred: 110* v Australia, November 2012
First ODI hundred: 106 v Australia, August 2014
First T20 hundred: 119 v West Indies, January 2015

Imagine spending your whole life being pretty shit-hot amazing at cricket but always in the shadow of another, even better player. Faf gets one over on his old mate AB de Villiers here, though, with his pitiful T20I best of just 79 not out.

Rohit Sharma (India)

First Test hundred: 177 v West Indies, November 2013
First ODI hundred: 114 v Zimbabwe, May 2010
First T20 hundred: 106 v South Africa, October 2015

If he continues to make a success of his Test recall for a while, Rohit – an ODI phenom and owner of four T20I hundreds – enters the best all-format batsman in the world today discussion. Good fun.

Shane Watson (Australia)
First Test hundred: 120* v Pakistan, December 2009
First ODI hundred: 126 v West Indies, June 2008
First T20 hundred: 124* v India, January 2016

Yes, Watto! Keeping that big old front pad out of the way long enough to score hundreds in all formats like a bloody legend.

Tamim Iqbal (Bangladesh)
First Test hundred: 128 v West Indies, July 2009
First ODI hundred: 129 v Ireland, March 2008
First T20 hundred: 103* v Oman, March 2016

Bit weird that none of his qualifying innings came against England. Always smacks England about.

KL Rahul (India)
First Test hundred: 110 v Australia, January 2015
First ODI hundred: 100* v Zimbabwe, June 2016
First T20 hundred: 110* v West Indies, August 2016

Absolutely no f***ing about from the third Indian on this list. Became just the 12th man to achieve the three hundreds feat and knocked the whole thing off in 18 months. Also achieved it in an almost unbeatable seven matches in total, recording centuries in his second Test, first ODI and fourth T20I. Tidy.

Glenn Maxwell (Australia)
First Test hundred: 104 v India, March 2017
First ODI hundred: 102 v Sri Lanka, March 2015
First T20 hundred: 145* v Sri Lanka, September 2016

For most players on this list, the T20I hundred is the tricky one. Not Glenn. Of course not Glenn. Five international centuries, three of them in T20s. All three unbeaten. #MaxwellBall, that.

Kevin O’Brien (Ireland)
First Test hundred: 118 v Pakistan, May 2018
First ODI hundred: 142 v Kenya, February 2007
First T20 hundred: 124 v Hong Kong, October 2019

Ireland’s first Test hundred. Ireland’s first T20 hundred. And his best international hundred of all doesn’t even matter as far as this list is concerned.

Afghanistan, England, Zimbabwe: Best of the rest

Alex Hales (England)
A man whose efforts as Test-opener-picked-on-white-ball-form may be in need of reevaluation in the light of Jason Roy’s travails. Anyway. Misses out on the three-format hundreds club by just six runs thanks to a Test best of 94. Joe Root is just 10 runs short – a T20I best of 90* that is, you’d think, now unlikely to be bettered. The man most likely to get over the line any time soon is perhaps Eoin Morgan, who has a T20I best of 85 not out to go with his 12 ODI hundreds (for England) and a couple in another lifetime when a) Eoin Morgan played Test cricket and b) having an average of 30 with two hundreds from 16 Tests for England got you dropped and forgotten forever as a disastrous horrible failure rather than hailed as the saviour of five-day batsmanship in the motherland. If Jonny Bairstow and/or Jos Buttler properly pin down a T20 opening spot they probably jump to the top of this list, mind.

Hamilton Masakadza (Zimbabwe)
One run behind Hales comes Masakadza thanks to a T20I high score of 93*. And that’s as close as he’ll get having announced his retirement last month. Gutting.

Rahmat Shah (Afghanistan)
He’s exactly 100 runs away having never played a T20I but he’s the only Test centurion in Afghanistan cricket so he’s rarer than a T20I century-maker. Shoutout to Hazratullah Zazai for having a T20I best of 162* but just one 50 in ODIs and no Test caps, while Mohammad Shahzad would surely have added a Test ton to his ODI and T20 efforts given more than two games to go at it.