As Mark Ramprakash looks set to record his 100th first-class hundred, Mike Selvey in the Guardian looks at previous instances of English batsmen reaching the milestone and the agonising wait for some.

No one, though, has taken longer than Walter Hammond, and he could play. His 99th hundred came early in 1935 for MCC in what was then British Guiana, but thereafter he entered a slump. Twenty-three innings came and went and just three times past 50 and none more than 71. He was, according to his biographer David Foot, ill, with recurrent sore throats and permanent tonsillitis. When Somerset arrived at Bristol on June 12, he took his colleague Reg Sinfield to one side. "I'm feeling rotten, Reg, and my confidence is going out there. Should I give it a miss for a few weeks?" Sinfield told him to go out and give it a blast instead.