There was no raising of the arms, no fist punch, no Leyton Hewitt-like “common”, no cross of the heart, no leap for joy, not even a smile; just an acknowledgement to his peers.
The muted celebrations on bringing up his maiden Test century sum up Chris Rogers as a person and a cricketer, the last of a kind.
Some cricketers come into fame through their stroke-play, aggression, elegance and arrogance, and there are others who just go unnoticed, but hold a team together.
They are not the crowd-pullers nor do they endorse modern day cricket, but they are certainly known how to score runs, well over 20,000 first-class runs.
On most occasions, the runs are nudges and deflections mixed with an occasional elegant cover drive or an authoritative pull. They can even at times struggle to dispatch full tosses, but know exactly how to wear out a bowler, put a price on their wicket and be least concerned about admirations or sympathy. They just love playing cricket and batting for countless hours even if that means defending over 100 balls in a day.
As Bradman once said, “You need to score off the bad balls but importantly, you need to keep the good balls out as well”. Sometimes, like on the Day two of the fourth Test, bowlers can dish out a barrage of balls that seam, swing and bounce constantly and it’s on such days a player like Rogers cherishes.
While a Watson and Warner would have gone to bed on Friday evening in their youth dreaming about boundaries, players like Rogers would have dreamt about a perfect leave or a deft punch past the bowlers. They seek equal satisfaction in a leave, so when such days as the second day of the fourth Test arrive, they relish the opportunity and success normally awaits them at the end of the day.
Ever since Simon Katich was dropped from the opening slot, Australian team have been desperate to find such an irritating opener for the opposition. The great strength of such players is they complement the stroke-players because they frustrate the bowlers and in the process, alter their lengths to stroke-makers.
Since their game is based around such a sound defence, they know exactly how to build and accelerate an innings. They rarely become stagnant once set, and their stroke-play is calculated. Players of such kind are rare in modern day cricket, so when they shine, it is a breath of fresh air.
Players such as Rogers are just addicted to playing cricket despite their age. They love the challenge and their personalities are defined on cricketing grounds.
Rogers might not have smiled when he got to his hundred, but a player of such nature probably grin on the inside in the nervous nineties, largely due to the fact that this particular phase of play was the most enjoyable in his Test career.
It is players like Rogers that keep the ‘Test’ in Test cricket alive.
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