It’s a dream come true, says Jennings

“I suppose waking up this morning if someone said to me you will get a Test match hundred, I would have put them off. I woke up at 5’O clock this morning thinking I will miss the bus. So jumped out of bed, settled myself down and then I saw the time. It’s been a dream-come-true and surreal that it’s come on debut,” said the 24-year-old Johannesburgborn batsman. He conceded he was lucky early on when Karun Nair at gully could not latch on to a difficult catch off Umesh Yadav when he was yet to score. 

“Thankfully it kind of hit his hand and got out. I had a little bit of luck but I suppose that’s the way the game goes sometimes. I am really thankful that the day has gone the way it has. When the ball lifted up to gully my heart was in my mouth and just thought you got a naught in your first innings. But thankfully it went to ground.” He also survived an early leg before review call by India off Bhuvneshwar Kumar when on 10. 

“At the time I thought it was close but when it got given not out I thought it might have kept outside the line. I knew I hadn’t hit it first. Thankful the decision went my way and not the other way around where the umpire’s call gets pulled against you.” He also played a couple of audacious reverse sweeps against Jayant Yadav with which he reached the hundred too. “It’s been a shot over the last six-eight months that I have played fairly successfully. At the moment I looked at the scoreboard and thought well rather than get out caught at first slip defending, I would rather try to get to the hundred,” he added.