How many batsmen have been out just one run short of a century in Test cricket? You'll find the answer here: 72. If you add to these the five batsmen who were not out on the same total, it makes 77 occasions in all on which a player has scored 99. After 1,920 Test matches, this means it happens 4 per cent of the time, or on average once in every 25 Tests. You'll be glad you know that now.
Anyway, in 1993 at Lord's it happened twice in the same match and I was there to see it. In Australia's mammoth first innings of 632 for four declared, Mark Waugh was on 99 when he was bowled by Phil Tufnell. At 452 for three, I was very disappointed for him. Then in England's second innings, Michael Atherton was run out just one short of his hundred, Merv Hughes throwing in fast and accurately from the square leg boundary after Atherton set out for the run that would have completed his century, was sent back by Mike Gatting, and slipped and fell as he turned. I was leaving Lord's that evening with a friend and we ran into an acquaintance of his, who was ruing the Atherton dismissal. 'The series needs a draw,' he said. Yeah, right. What he meant was that England needed a draw, having already lost the first Test and now facing the prospect of going 2-0 down - as they duly did.
From the bookshelves:
But for an aberration by Mark Waugh against Tufnell on 99, the first four Australian batsmen would have completed centuries.
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Atherton was... the cornerstone of England's second innings... until a moment of masochistic madness... [He] had reached 97, batting more fluently than in the first innings, when he clipped a ball to mid-wicket off Border. Both batsmen were swayed by the impending landmark as they debated a third run. Atherton set off, stalled and then slipped as Hughes hurled the ball from the boundary; he was agonisingly stranded as Healy removed the bails. If he had been on seven or 87 a third run would not have been contemplated. - Wisden 1994When Mark reached 99, all the players congregated on the balcony in preparation for a celebration. But, on this occasion, that preparation was tragically cut short. A Tufnell delivery cannoned off Junior's pads and clipped his off stump, robbing him of every cricketer's dream - a century at Lord's.
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Hughes, fielding at deep backward-square waiting for the sweep, raced around the boundary and picked up the ball only inches from the rope. At precisely the same time as Merv intervened, Atherton turned and headed off for his third and 100th run. Gatting spotted the danger and sent him back, only to see his partner slip and be left tragically sprawled on the wicket, out of his ground. Merv's return was brilliantly picked up on the bounce by Heals, and the stumps were broken - which I'm sure is how Atherton felt. Cricket can be a cruel game sometimes. - Steve Waugh's Ashes Diary
There were three 99s in this Test between Pakistan and England in 1973, and two 99s in this one between New Zealand and England in 1992. A series I remember well which had several near misses was that between Australia and England in 1979-80. That was the first post-Kerry Packer series and the Ashes weren't at stake. In the first Test at Perth both Kim Hughes and Geoff Boycott made 99, in Boycott's case not out. At Sydney David Gower and Greg Chappell both made 98 not out. And in the last game of the series in Melbourne, Graham Gooch was run out for 99. So it goes.
[For links to the other posts in this series, see here.]