Hitting A Century! (100 Hub Milestone)

Cricket is a difficult game to explain to those who aren't familiar with it but basically is a bat and ball game played between two teams of 11 players on a field at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. Each team takes its turn to bat, attempting to score runs, while the other team fields and tries to get them out. Each turn is known as an inning.

The bowler throws the ball (using a stiff arm action) to the batsman who attempts to hit the ball away from the fielders so he can run to the other end of the pitch without getting run out (where the fielder throws the ball directly onto wickets or to the wicket keeper so he can dislodge the bails before the batsman or the non-striker has reached the crease). Each batsman continues batting until he is out. He can also be bowled out if he misses the ball and it hits the wickets. If a hit ball reaches the boundary on the full without bouncing on the ground it scores six runs, if it hits the ground on the way to reaching the boundary it counts as four runs.

The batting team continues batting until ten batsmen are out or specified number of overs (6 balls) have been bowled, at which point the teams switch roles and the fielding team comes in to bat. The team with the most runs at the end of the game is declared the winner.

Today there are many different forms of cricket including: Test Matches(5 days), One Day Matches, Twenty20, indoor cricket.

In the sport of cricket, to reach a score of 100 runs while batting is a major goal sought after by all batsmen, but that only the best are usually capable of achieving.

On Tuesday 18th March 2014 in a Twenty20 cricket match in the Indian Premier League, West Indian cricketer Chris Gayle blasted the fastest century in professional cricket. Gayle, playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore made his 100 runs off just 30 balls, finishing on 175 runs not out.

Gayle smashed 17 sixes and 13 fours in his innings of just 66 balls beating the previous highest Twenty20 score of 158 by Brendon McCullum, also set at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium in the first-ever IPL match six years ago. West Indian captain Darren Sammy referred to Gayle as “not human, he’s a tsunami mixed with a nuclear bomb”.

Chris Gayle has already two triple centuries to his credit as a batsman in first class professional cricket.

• 100 is the basis of percentage, with 100% being a full amount.('per cent' is 'per hundred' in Latin)
• 100 degrees Celsius is the boiling temperature of fresh water at sea level.
• The US Senate has 100 senators, two from each of the 50 states.
• There are 100 years in a Century.
• Most of the world's currencies are divided into 100 subunits; one dollar is 100 cents, one euro is 100 cents, and one pound sterling is one hundred pence.
• Centennial is a 100 year anniversary.
• A person who lives to 100 is a centenarian. If they are a citizen of the British Commonwealth they receive a personal congratulatory letter from the Queen on turning 100.
• Winnie the Pooh lives in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Today, when I turned on my computer to check my emails I was excited to see an email with this heading:

"Hi Jodah, You have hit a pretty impressive milestone—you have published 100 Hubs!"

I knew I was getting close to reaching my century milestone but hadn't been keeping track over the last few days so it was great to see this email. A year ago I wouldn't have believed this possible. You see I have been a member of Hub Pages for more than four years now, but I had only written three hubs in the first three years. I wasn't sure how the site worked and hadn't had a lot of spare time to write anyway.

Approximately a year ago things changed in my life and I found I had more time on my hands. I revisited Hub Pages and decided to try to become more involved. I began 'hub hopping' to get an idea of the type of things people were writing, and began leaving comments. I came across a hub of beautiful poetry written by a lady named Nellieanna, and left a comment. I was so surprised by her wonderful reply to my comment and she welcomed me to hub pages and read my hubs in return.

I am ever grateful to Nellianna for encouraging me to write more poetry and she 'followed' me and shared my hubs with her own circle of hubbers. This is how I found all you wonderful people who have accepted me into this community and made me feel welcome. In the last year I have written 97 hubs, well actually 99 counting this one, and another I have currently unpublished because it is entered in a competition elsewhere and can't be published here while the competition is under way.

As I said, I would not have thought it possible for me to have written this many hubs let alone the growth I have experienced in my writing, expanding into short stories, articles and biographies, in addition to my first love, poetry.

Thank you everyone for reading my hubs, leaving your wonderful comments with your encouragement and support, and above all your friendship. Without all this I wouldn't have reached this milestone. My new goal is to reach 200 hubs within the next year. I hope you'll share the journey with me, and I look forward to reading all your wonderful hubs as well.

If anyone reading this is new to Hub Pages, I encourage you to join in the community by reading as many hubs on different topics and genres as you can, leave comments, and write write write. Before you know it you will have written 100 hubs as well.

As I write this update Australia are playing New Zealand in the final of the 2015 Cricket World Cup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). New Zealand are batting first but their batting is beginning to collapse with three quick wickets falling and they are now 6 out for 151. Anything can happen and the last meeting of these two teams was close and a low scoring game. That being said, things look good for an Aussie victory.

I have now written 191 hubs so it won't be long before I write my double century hub :)