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Keaton Jennings: England's latest and just 13th 'Ton-Up Boy'

England's Keaton Jennings in action in his first Test. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Roar Pro
13th December, 2016
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Back in the 1950s and 60s, there was a youth sub-culture known as the ‘Ton-Up Club’. This club was populated by the ‘Ton-Up Boys’ who attempted to reach the magic speed of 100 miles per hour, or ton, as they raced their modified motorcycles.

They frequented places like the Ace Café and other Rock ‘n Roll playing venues on the arterial highways of England.

You can see them glaring out of old black and white photographs where they reflect a curious persona of Joe Brown mixed with Marlon Brando in The Wild One.

A film that, like the Ton-up boys, looks a little anachronistic now. However, it still remains worth watching for a couple of memorable scenes. An example being:

“What are you rebelling against, Johnny?”
“Whataya got!”

England’s Keaton Jennings isn’t rebelling against anything. Quite the contrary. He is doing his best to embrace being a bonafide Test batsman.

With his very first Test innings, he has joined cricket’s very own ‘Ton-Up Club’. He has become the 69th member of this 100-in-your-first-innings club, one that dates back to the very first Test match in 1877 where Charles Bannerman hit the game’s first century.

When we confine ourselves to just England, the club becomes even more compact, select and exclusive. Just 12 English cricketers have achieved the milestone of scoring 100 runs in their first innings on the highest stage in 139 years of Test cricket history.

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This achievement has most recently been fulfilled by Matthew Prior (126* versus West Indies at Lord’s 2007) and Andrew Strauss (112 versus New Zealand at Lord’s 2004). It would seem fair to say that both went on to do pretty well in the international game.

Based on the above, one could be forgiven for thinking that Keaton Jennings has already discovered the golden ticket.

He has walked straight into a tough tour with England in freefall. The side looked unable to arrest a sub-continental decline and a nailed-on 4-0 series reversal.

Jennings was rushed in as injury cover straight from an England Lions series against UAE and has made runs against a strong home attack in previously conditions he hasn’t experienced before.

Surely now the world would now awaits? Cricket would not be cricket without cruel and sudden reversals in fortune.

Jennings’ second innings golden duck is a testament to this. It is curious to think that Jennings could so easily have joined a very different and unwanted club had the first innings catch been held in the gully when he was still to get off the mark.

A ‘pair’ on debut is a scar that could have taken a long time to heal and it is probable that Jennings would have had just the fifth Test to turn things around, before being sent back to Durham to work on his game in the second division of the County Championship.

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Does a century on debut really guarantee anything? The layman would consider that if an individual can step up to the highest level and perform to a standard of excellence at their very first attempt, then surely they are made of the right stuff. The game can only become easier as they gain increased exposure to it.

This, of course, leaves aside the basic fact that new batsman can often get found out once international attacks get a proper chance to forensically examine their technique and scoring areas.

The batsman can sometimes burn bright and then be required to step back and address limitations or flaws in technique. Some do this successfully, whereas others seemingly struggle to make the desired improvements – see Gary Ballance.

Keaton Jennings has successfully joined the ranks of some England greats. These include cricketing colossi such as W.G. Grace (152 versus Australia at The Oval 1880), to a lesser extent 50s classicist Peter May (138 versus South Africa at Headingley 1951) and Nottinghamshire’s George Gunn (119 versus Australia at Sydney 1907).

Also on the list of first innings centurions are R.E. “Tip” Foster (287 versus Australia at Sydney 1903) and the Nawab of Pataudi Sr.(102 versus Australia at Sydney 1932) who also had the even rarer distinction of being capped by both England and India. They may not be among the very top rank but are nevertheless names that are respected and remembered.

But what of the others?

John Hampshire announced himself to Test cricket by becoming the first batsman to reach a century on debut at Lord’s. His 107 against the 1969 West Indies was followed by a quiet second Test and ultimately the axe.

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He never passed three figures again at international level and went on to play just eight Tests with a final average of just 26.86. His Test career ending with a fourth ball duck at the hands of the fearsome Jeff Thomson. He is now remembered primarily as an international umpire, save for that one shining moment at Lord’s in 1969.

How about Arthur Milton, Billy Griffith or Bryan Valentine. Anyone?

These are names that I recall from Bill Frindall’s statistical masterpiece “England Test Cricketers – The Full Record” written in about 1989. A weighty tome read only by fanatics and insomniacs. But I recollect little else about them.

Arthur Milton began his Test career with 104* at Headingley against a weak New Zealand side in 1958. This performance earned him a place on the winter tour to Australia where his limitations were readily exposed before he ultimately returned home with a hand injury.

In a total of six Test matches, he never surpassed 50 again and ended with just 204 runs at 25.50. His main claim to fame now being that he was the last of England’s double internationals. He spent his winters turning out for Arsenal and won a solitary international cap in a 2-2 draw against Austria at Wembley in 1951.

Billy Griffith passed three figures just three times in 215 first class matches where he played predominately as a Wicket Keeper.

Uniquely, Griffith’s maiden first-class hundred occurred in his first Test innings where he amassed 140 runs against the West Indies at Port-of-Spain on the 1947-48 tour, playing as a makeshift opener following the unavailability of three specialist batsmen.

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Griffith was not able to repeat this initial success and managed just another 17 runs in two further matches. His final average of 31.40 was permanently buoyed by that first innings ton.

Last of all, we come to Bryan Valentine.

He is a player from yesteryear that I am compelled to declare an interest in. Every Saturday morning in the summer I take my children to a local cricket club to train.

As I queue in the pavilion for my weekly sportsman’s breakfast of a cup of tea and a bacon roll, a small picture of Bryan Valentine always catches my eye. It is accompanied by a note confirming that he was an ex-player of the club and that he represented Kent.

Quite incongruously, it makes no mention of him representing England. I sometimes wonder how many people cast their eyes over that picture while stirring their tea or dispensing their HP sauce and are blissfully unaware that B.H. Valentine played 399 times for Cambridge University, Kent, and England.

At a domestic level, Valentine scored an unremarkable 18,306 runs at 30.15 with 35 centuries. However, it was really in Test Cricket that his statistics properly came into their own, with him amassing 454 runs in seven matches at the average of 64.85.

This is a meteoric average albeit one constructed from a very low sample. Valentine, as you might expect from his name, exemplified cricket’s second golden age between the wars.

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He was strong in attack with all the classical strokes but infinitely less obdurate in defence, where he could become undone only by the best bowling. Valentine made his debut on the 1933/34 tour of India.

A series more famous for being India’s first ever at home and the last in which England were led by that great polariser of opinion, Douglas Jardine.

In that first match hosted at the Gymkhana Ground in Bombay, Valentine batted at six and made 136 in a three-hour stay at the crease. With England’s batting reserves running deep he had to wait for the 1938/39 tour to South Africa for his next series.

He again found three figures with an innings of 112 at Cape Town. His final innings ended at 4* on the 10th day of the famous timeless Test in Durban. The one that eventually had to be put to bed as a draw in order for England to successfully catch the boat home. Then the war came along and by 1945 Valentine was 38 and his time had gone.

Who knows how the story will play out for Keaton Jennings?

A hundred on debut promises much but guarantees nothing. I think he is mature enough to understand that, especially after that second innings golden duck.

Maybe he will speed into the night like those old Ton-up boys on their Enfields to a disembodied soundtrack of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. Just another fading image in cricket’s collective rearview mirror.

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It is improbable to expect another W.G. Grace, but with England’s current batting travails I think Englishman would happily settle for him being the next Andrew Strauss.

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