5 best Test innings of 2019

The outgoing year 2019 witnessed some great batting efforts from players belonging to several teams. We saw a triple hundred from David Warner and several double hundreds of great quality too.

It was also a year where many good bowlers made the task of scoring runs difficult. But the very best batsmen still found a way to rise above those challenges.

As we come to the end of 2019, let us look at the five best Test innings played in the last 12 months. The innings listed below were special not just because of the amount of runs scored but also due to the situation in which they were played and the opposition involved.

5. Babar Azam (104 vs Australia, Brisbane)

Babar Azam's hundred against Australia was a sublime knock

Watching Babar Azam bat is one of the most pleasant experiences in cricket.

While the 25-year-old has been a prolific century-scorer in the ODI format, his performances in Test cricket had earlier been falling short of expectations. However, this year proved to be the turning point in the right-hander’s career, as he started to realize his potential in the longest format too.

In the first Test of the two-match series in Australia, while his team suffered a devastating loss, Azam managed to score a sublime hundred that left everyone in awe. His 104 came when his team was up against it – battling to save an innings defeat and reduced to 94/5.

What made his job even tougher was the incredible Australian bowling attack – Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon – which had dominated the match until that point. Azam not only managed to keep them at bay, but he also dazzled everyone with his sublime stroke-play.

The natural talent that Azam always had blossomed fully amidst the otherwise barren performance of Pakistan.

4. Jason Holder (202 vs England, Bridgetown)

Jason Holder's breathtaking innings set up West Indies' victory over England

Jason Holder has shown right from the beginning of his career that he is a very capable batsman. Combining his long reach with effective stroke-play, Holder has played some great innings.

But his best came against a stunned English team in the first Test of a three-match series.

After West Indies gained a 212-run first-innings lead, they were stuttering at 61/5. What followed was an amazing knock by their captain and a memorable partnership between him and Shane Dowrich.

Playing with his usual panache, Holder first blunted an England bowling attack that was threatening to take away the game. He didn’t just play well-timed shots, as he usually does, but also showed the kind of solid technique and determination one expects from top-order batsmen.

After reaching his hundred and securing the game for his team, Holder cut loose and unleashed a stunning array of shots, including some really big hits, to tear apart the English bowling attack. 23 fours and 8 sixes decorated what was a truly memorable knock - and eventually, a match-winning one.

3. Steve Smith (144 vs England, Birmingham)

Steve Smith made a triumphant return to Test cricket in the Ashes 2019

Consider the situation – Steve Smith is making a return to Test cricket after a year-long ban for ball-tampering; his team is in a difficult situation at 35/3, then 105/5; the ball is still moving and England have good swing bowlers in Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Ben Stokes.

What happened next was a reassertion by Smith, in the most emphatic manner, of the fact that his class and quality were intact. The former captain played a splendid innings of 144 where he left the English bowlers feeling helpless against a man who had tormented them previously too.

With wickets falling at the other end, Smith showed that his unorthodox technique was good enough to succeed in English conditions even at that sensitive stage of his career. He also assured Australian fans that the ban had only increased his will to succeed.

This was the beginning of a golden series for the Aussie batsman, where he played the key role in his team retaining the Ashes.

2. Kusal Perera (153* vs South Africa, Durban)

Kusal Perera's innings scripted a miraculous win for Sri Lanka

Even if Kusal Perera does nothing else in his career, this innings itself will assure his name being prominently recorded in history books. The knock stunned the whole cricket world, coming as it did when Sri Lanka, a team that had been facing a torrid time prior to this series, looked all set for another defeat.

Chasing a target of 304, against South Africa in their own backyard, against an attack comprising Dale Steyn, Kagiso Rabada and Vernon Philander, Sri Lanka seemed hopelessly out of the game. When they were tottering at 110/5, things seemed set to end quickly.

But Perera, a player who has frustrated Sri Lankan fans by regularly throwing away his wicket, batted like a man possessed.

When his team was nine down with 78 runs still to get, even the most optimistic fan of the Lankan team would have lost hope. However, the pugnacious left-hander soldiered on.

By shielding his partner Vishwa Fernando from the strike and taking audacious risks, Perera slowly took his team closer to an unbelievable win. And then, after batting for more than 15 overs with his No. 11 partner, he finally achieved the unthinkable.

While the South Africans didn’t know what had hit them, the world gasped at the brilliance of the batsman.

1. Ben Stokes (135* vs Australia, Headingley)

Ben Stokes innings at Headingley is regarded as one of the best ever

It was at this ground, in 1981, that Ian Botham produced an unthinkable turnaround along with Bob Willis to seal one of England’s greatest ever wins. Ben Stokes, who is considered the heir to Botham, produced something equally extraordinary in the 2019 Ashes Test here.

England were bowled out for 67 in their first innings. Chasing a target of 359 seemed very hard against a bowling attack of Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, James Pattinson and Nathan Lyon, all of whom were performing brilliantly.

Then, Stokes took center-stage. He played ultra-cautiously in the first part of his innings to steady his team’s progress. Then, when wickets started falling and Australia closed in on a victory that would have sealed the Ashes for them, he decided to launch a full-frontal assault.

At 286/9 the match seemed over, but Stokes never lost hope.

He shielded the No. 11 Jack Leach from the strike as much as possible by taking singles late in the over while smacking the bowlers in the early part. A missed run-out and a bad lbw decision worked in his favour in the penultimate over; destiny was on Stokes' side.

It was his amazing big-hitting – eight sixes – that brought his team to the doorstep of an amazing win. He achieved it with a boundary after sharing a last-wicket stand of 76 runs off 62 balls. Leach scored just one run off the 17 deliveries he faced.

The image of Stokes at the end of the match, standing at the center of the ground, will go down as one of the most iconic in English cricket history.