Here are five such innings which can be termed a little bit “unselfish” considering the way they were played:
David Warner (CB series final, 2012)
Warner, otherwise, is a very fluent player and scores at a brisk pace, but in this particular match against Sri Lanka, he took 140 deliveries to complete his hundred which was very surprising.
It can, at times, happen that even fluent players score slow, but that generally happens when the pitch is tough for batting. However, on the same pitch, the Australian captain Michael Clarke scored 117 off just 91 balls. So, Warner’s approach was hard to understand.
Michael Vandort (VB Series, 2006)
This was the first and last game of Michael Vandort’s One Day International career and the way he played, nobody was shocked that he was never picked to play for Sri Lanka again.
Sri Lanka was chasing down a huge target of 319 runs against Australia and Vandort batted at a strike rate of less than 50. His 48 off 117 balls went a long way in ensuring that Sri Lanka didn’t get anywhere close to Australia’s total.
Jacques Kallis (ODI World Cup, 2007)
Jacques Kallis was someone who was the sheet-anchor in the South African batting line-up, but when South Africa was chasing 378 against Australia in a match of the 2007 World Cup, Kallis was expected to score at a quicker rate.
Kallis, however, batted pretty slow during that chase as well and scored just 48 runs off 63 balls. As it turned out eventually, South Africa couldn’t even cross 300.