Ahmedabad, second Test, day 2, close
Wednesday, December 12, 2001

Slapheads of the world rejoice. You may be forever tarred by the football hooligan and the racist thug, but today there is a sporting hero to raise the mighty razor. And it isn't Duncan Goodhew. For while the grass frazzled in the Sardar Patel Gujarat Stadium, Craig White became (we think) the first baldy to score a century for England.

There have been nearly men before - Chris Lewis had just an underlay of hair when he scored that century against India on the last tour, Graham Gooch and Geoff Boycott were in various stages of comb-over in their long careers. But White, his shaven glory protected from the Ahmedabad sun by an English helmet, is the real thing.

And this innings was the real thing. White's first Test century for England and one which, with the help of James Foster and White's Yorkshire mates, took England from the tightrope to the trampoline. It wasn't perfection - he was dropped twice, Deep Dasgupta missed a stumping and a ball from Javagal Srinath kissed his stumps without, somehow, knocking off the bails. But it was perspiration, perseverance, and confidence - lofting Harbajan Singh for six off the first ball of his spell isn't for the faint-hearted.

Most strikingly of all, White showed the prized ability to wipe from his brain what had happened 30 seconds before. Twice after he had been given another life, he sweetly drove the next ball to the boundary. A legacy, perhaps, of the morning last year that he found himself unconscious in a Scarborough gutter. It has given him a new perspective on life - when you've flirted with your last breath, you don't fret too much over a first-ball duck.

Prospering on the subcontinent is a peculiar peccadillo for an Englishman, even an Aussie-Englishman. But in his eight Tests in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and now India, White has made 422 runs at an average of 38.36, and five of his seven highest scores have come in this part of the world. His record everywhere else - 266 runs in 15 Tests at an average of 12.09 - should be packed up and dropped (by Deep Dasgupta, ideally) into the deepest pothole on the Yorkshire moors.

"I enjoy playing against world-class spinners," he explained in his gentle, still-Aussie twang at the end of the day. "I treat it as a massive challenge and I just try and be positive as much as I can without being reckless.

"I always knew I could get a Test century. I got so close in Lahore last year - one of the biggest disappointments of my life, but I made sure I got it today. It hasn't sunk in yet but when that single went down to fine leg it was a very big relief for Craig White."

Relief and joy as he kissed his helmet in "a mark of respect to the boys". (A neat way round the unasked question of whether he feels 100-percent English.) It was rare showmanship from a quiet man. Even at tonight's press conference he found it hard to make eye contact with his questioner, nervously fiddling with the back of his collar.

Maybe it isn't surprising, because this bloke who blows the top off the niceness scale, has had a rocky Test career - playing only 23 Tests in seven and a half years. He was originally scalded by being typecast as Ray Illingworth's protege in the Mike Atherton years. Chairman Illy would tell anyone who was listening about this gifted Yorkshireman called White; Atherton, stubborn tinker that he was, would then leave him to fester in the outfield while he called up any old carthorse to bowl from ten lumbering paces.

It is only in the last couple of years that Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain have managed to coax White out of his chrysalis. He was given a surprise Test contract during the one-day series in South Africa and Zimbabwe in 1999-2000, which he was only called up for as a replacement for Andy Flintoff. he then played a central role in the demolition of the West Indian batting at Headingley and The Oval. And in Pakistan and Sri Lanka last year he was a revelation - making 93 at Lahore and reverse-swinging like a champion yo-yoer.

He is no longer the 750cc Yamaha motorbike with the ball that he was a year ago - as he gamely confessed to the management a month ago. But that deceleration has made him work harder with the bat. In the first Test you'd have been hard pressed to tell. But this morning White had a good feeling that "today would be my day". And it was.

Tanya Aldred, our assistant editor, is covering the whole tour for Wisden.com.

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