May this be the first of many!

Shubman Gill must be a relieved young man after exorcising the demons of missing out on a threefigure score in international cricketGill 22 smashed a 97ball 130 in the third and final oneday international at Harare on Monday His heart may have skipped a beat a few times after watching Zimbabwersquos centurion Sikandar Raza threatening to run away with the game Interestingly Gill literally played a hand in sending back Raza with a fine catch in the deep off Shardul Thakur holding on to the ball inches off the turf What a bummer it would have been had his maiden international hundred gone in vain against a No13ranked team in ODI cricket India ranked No 3 clinched the game by 13 runsGill carved an unbeaten 82 while guiding India to a 10wicket win in the first match of the series In the previous ODImdashagainst West Indies at Port of Spain he stayed unbeaten on 98 as India put up 225 in 36 overs during a rainaffected game So it was fair to expect a hundred from Gill All through his previous 11 Tests and eight ODIs he displayed his talent and abilityThe search for a maiden hundred can be excruciating for players and there have been cases when the first century has been a significant scoreThere is perhaps no better example than Australian great Bob Simpson whose first threefigure knock in Test cricket was a triple centurySimpson went 29 Tests without a century after having made his debut in 195758 in South Africa In the first innings of the fourth Test of the 1964 Ashes at Old Trafford he helped himself to 311 which included 109 on Day One He was unbeaten at the end of the second day as well with 265Interestingly the righthanded opening batsman opened his Test century account only after becoming captainIn the documentary Cricket in the 1960rsquosmdashWinds of Change Simpson said he always promised himself that his first century would be a ldquobiggierdquoIan Chappell who made his Test debut under Simpson against Pakistan in 196465 waited 10 Tests for his first centurymdash151 against India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground where he had made his debut three years agoHe went on to score 13 more with a highest of 196 against Pakistan at the Adelaide Oval in 197273The 151 against MAK Pataudirsquos Indians was not followed up by some big scores but in his autobiography Chappelli he called it a knock that ldquoalmost certainly saved my bacon as an international cricketerrdquoChappellrsquos future teammate Bruce Laird presented an example of a player getting out in the 90s on Test debut 92 v West Indies at Brisbane in 197980 and ending his career without a Test century Laird came into the side after World Series Cricket ended and did what he was instructed to do ldquoTo see off the fast bowlers and make sure the later batsmen were not exposed to the new ballrdquo Those were Richie Benaudrsquos words in his report for a publication on the 197980 Tests in AustraliaA year before that Brisbane Test Indiarsquos Dilip Vengsarkar broke his tonless streak which spanned 16 Tests and scored his maiden Test hundred in the 30th Test innings of his career At the Eden Gardens against the West Indies Vengsarkar flayed a pace attack comprising Sylvester Clarke Norbert Phillip a green Malcolm Marshall and veteran Vanburn Holder for an unbeaten 157 He put on a record second wicket stand of 344 with his skipper Sunil Gavaskar 182 not out Their teammate Mohinder Amarnath got his first Test hundred in his 15th Test His 100 in the second innings of the 197778 Perth Test came after a 90 in the first inningsBy the 198485 home series against England Amarnath was a player decorated with several honoursmdashgallant batting shows in the 198283 series in Pakistan and West Indiesmdashas well as man of the matchwinning allround performances in the 1983 World Cup semifinals and final But the 198485 Test series didnrsquot belong to India The hostsmdashsave the opening Test in Mumbaimdashwere outclassed by David Gowerrsquos Englishmen Mike Gatting the vicecaptain of that side had no hundred to show in his first 30 Tests in a career that began in 197778 Gatting got his maiden ton in the first Test and from a personal point of view he was cockahoop The 54innings wait for a Test hundred had ended He scored a matchwinning 207 later in the series at Chennai He also got his maiden ODI century in PuneIn a way Gattingrsquos international career took off after 30 Tests ldquoDavid Gower had a big fight trying to get me on the tour in the first place because I hadnrsquot done so well in Test cricket He got me on the trip as vicecaptain which was extraordinary He said you will bat at No 3 If it does not work out then you have to go in at four or five but you will definitely play in all the Tests So get in there and do it It worked out That was a big show of faith in merdquo Gatting told me in an interview at Mohali in 2006The right kind of words can be a great morale booster but nothing to match the confidence a batsman gets by way of runs Gill has had a good amount of them in recent times And Mondayrsquos maiden international hundred could well mean hersquos got his meter welloiled for moremiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stanceHe tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper