Generally, whenever a captain did this, he not only faced the anger of that player but also the resentment of his fans. This is what happened when Sachin Tendulkar was on 194* against Pakistan in Multan in 2004 and Rahul Dravid declared the innings. Dravid was looking for a wicket before the end of the day's play. Tendulkar was very angry with this decision of Dravid and has mentioned it at many places. Well, this incident is a different story. There are also such examples when the captain himself did not worry about his record. Sunil Gavaskar was on 182* against West Indies in Kolkata in 1978 and in his desire to win the Test, he did not stop till his 200 and declared the innings over.

There is another classic example in this context. For that, let's go straight to the Test played in December 1991 in Sialkot during the Pakistan tour of Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan captain Aravinda de Silva won the toss and chose to bat but the team could score only 270 runs – Sanath Jayasuriya's scores of 77 and Hasan Tillakaratne's 49 were the most special in this while Waqar Younis took 5 wickets. Pakistan responded by declaring the innings over at 423/5. Rameez Raja strengthened the innings by scoring 98 runs and Salim Malik scored 101 runs, but the work of increasing the score was done by captain Imran Khan and scored 93* in 189 balls with 9 fours and 3 sixes. Young Wasim Akram was at the crease with him and both of them had added 58 runs in the partnership for the 6th wicket.

After ordinary batting on the first 3 days, thanks to Imran, there was some increase in scoring on the fourth day and Imran had the fastest strike rate among the batsmen. Imran was not just eyeing a first innings lead – he wanted to turn the Test towards victory. Therefore, when Pakistan team was ahead by 153 runs, Imran took a decision which no one had expected. Imran declared the innings over when he himself was on 93*. Note – He himself was the captain but did not covet his 100.

It is a different matter that the Test ended in a draw but captain Imran Khan set a unique example in his last Test series. The captain of the Pakistan team was not famous for such an attitude. Imran Khan soon stopped playing Tests after this and did not play international cricket after winning the World Cup. His Test record has 6 scores of 100 but it could have easily been 7 that day. Then, this was the only example in Test history when a captain declared his innings on his score of ninety (90).