West Indies captain Chris Gayle and Brendon McCullum of New Zealand are the other two batsmen to have scored a century in the shortest format of the game.

Gayle’s 57-ball 117 against South Africa had made him the first to achieve the rare distinction in 2007 and then the Kiwi joined the West Indian after hitting an unbeaten 116 off 56 balls against Australia earlier this year.

Raina’s blistering knock, which helped India pile up a intimidating 186 for five, was bejewelled with nine fours and five sixes.

“It’s a nice feeling. So far this has been a good year for me, I am hitting the ball well. We had a good partnership (with Yuvraj Singh),” Raina said after the innings.

“I was looking to hit the ball straight but was not playing any pre-planned strokes. If you play 40 to 50 balls and you can score 80 to 85 runs.

“I had batted well in the IPL and knew that number three is crucial (position) and if you bat well, sure you can get a hundred,” he said.

Twenty20 international century-makers (score, player, team, opposition, ground, date):

117 Chris Gayle WIS v RSA, Johannesburg, Sep 11 2007

116 no Brendon McCullum NZL v AUS, Christchurch, Feb 28 2010

101 Suresh Raina IND v RSA, Gros Islet, May 02 2010

India escaped a late assault from the Protea batsmen to score their second successive win and topped their group.

Powered by Raina’s hundred, first by an Indian batsman in the shortest format, India posted a commanding 186 for five after invited to bat at Beausejourn stadium.

India then just about managed to restrict their rivals to 172 for five, surviving a late blitzkrieg from the Protea batsmen, who did extremely well to get close to the target after a sluggish start.

Jacques Kallis (73, 3×4, 3×6) and Graeme Smith (36, 2×6) fought tooth and nail to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, raising 96 runs for the second wicket, but their effort wasn’t good enough to quell the Indian challenge.

De Villiers (31, 3×6) desperately threw his bat around towards the latter part of the innings, but the asking rate was far too high to scale.

Raina was the toast of Indian win, reaffirming that he is a dependable batsman when the going gets tough for his team.

He is only third batsman to score a hundred in this format with the first two centuries coming from the bats of West Indies’ Chris Gayle and Brendon McCullum of New Zealand.

Raina was sedate at the start, but when he got his eye in and assessed the wicket, he went hammer and tongs, smashing fours and sixes with relentless ease.

He took 42 balls to reach 50, but stepped on the gas pedal as the innings wore on. He barely needed 17 more balls to race to his maiden hundred in T20 cricket.

He virtually slaughtered the South Africa pace attack, which had held sway in the first six overs of the innings.

Rory Langeveldt (2/48) and Albie Morkel (1/39) were treated with disdain. So was Morne Morkel.

The diminutive 24-year-old struck nine fours and five sixes and first raised 88 match-winning runs for the third wicket with Yuvraj Singh (37) and then 43 with Yuusf Pathan.

Those partnerships were the hub around which the Indian innings developed, giving the bowlers the liberty to try out their wares on this slow track.

The Indian innings was in a shambles before Raina’s exploits. Going into the game without an indisposed Gautam Gambhir and a rested Zaheer Khan, India were in the woods at 32 for two in the sixth over.

Murali Vijay (0) perished to the second ball of the match, flashing his willow at a Rory Kleinveldt delivery for Mark Boucher to complete a regulation catch.

And Dinesh Karthik, who replaced Gambhir in the eleven, was all at sea against the South Africa pace quartet — Rory Kleinveldt, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Albie Morkel before holing out to Grame Smith at wide mid-on off Kallis.

If the Indian supporters were crestfallen in the first half of the innings, they were on their toes as the Raina and Yuvraj cut loose at the square.

Diminutive Raina may be, but he matched his senior partners’ power, clearing the pickets with effortless ease. He hit clean and hard and found the gaps in the outfield with uncanny precision.

The third-wicket pair had raised 88 runs when Yuvarj, who had struck three fours and two sixes in his 30-ball 37, was snared by Smith off Kleinveldt.

Raina in his brief association with Yusuf Pathan, creamed for 18 of the 25 runs that came off Kleinvedlt’s over, 18th of the innings. He hit the Protea bowler for three fours and a six in that over.

He lofted Albie Morkel over mid-wicket to reach the milestone mark in the third ball of the last over and got out next ball.

Raina, who has been in ominous form since IPL, also rode on his luck as he was caught off a no ball early in his innings and also survived a couple of run out chances.

Skipper MS Dhoni finished the Indian innings in style, hitting a six in the last ball.

ICC World Twenty20

India go into the ICC World Twenty20 determined to avoid a second big failure in three years in the Caribbean with a solid all-round performance.

India, who suffered a humiliating first-round exit in the 50-over World Cup in the West Indies in 2007, need to show their depth in batting, especially after losing hard-hitting opener Virender Sehwag to a shoulder injury.

With record-breaking batsman Sachin Tendulkar not part of the T20 side since 2007, the onus will be on skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh to put up a formidable batting show.

India were in a similar situation ahead of the last year’s tournament in England, but the result was a big disappointment for their fans as they failed to qualify for the semi-finals.

They travelled to England just a few days after the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in South Africa, with coach Gary Kirsten citing “fatigue” as one of the reasons for the team’s failure.

The limbs will be tired this time also as Indians played virtually non-stop cricket for more than a month in the recent IPL which ended five days before the Cup, but Dhoni downplayed the fatigue factor.

“We will be going into the Twenty20 fully prepared, though we will have very little time to refresh ourselves,” said Dhoni.

“As professionals, we are always committed to giving our best. There can be no excuse for failure.”

Former champions India are expected to clear the first hurdle having been drawn in the same group as first-timers Afghanistan and South Africa, with the top two advancing to the Super Eights.

Batting will be India’s main strength, with Dhoni, Raina, Gambhir, Yuvraj and Yusuf Pathan all capable of dominating any attack with their exciting stroke-play.

The conditions in the Caribbean are likely to favour India more than those in England where their batsman often struggled, especially against short-pitched bowling, on seaming tracks.

India have named two newcomers, batsman Murali Vijay as Sehwag’s replacement and paceman Vinay Kumar, after the players’ impressive performances in the IPL.

The growing success of the IPL may suggest that India are keen only on the slam-bang version, but Dhoni’s men have played just two T20 internationals since the World meet in June last year.

They lost the first match against World Twenty20 runners-up Sri Lanka by 29 runs before beating the same rivals by six wickets in the second match in December.

Twenty20 cricket may be all about batsmen trying to belt the ball out of the park, but there is still a room for quality bowlers to achieve success as was shown in the recent IPL.

India have effective seamers in Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar and Ashish Nehra, who are capable of testing batsmen with variations. Spinners Harbhajan Singh and Ravindra Jadeja also can curb stroke-makers with a tidy line and length.

India have so far won 10 of their 20 Twenty20 Internationals.

However, the time now is to look ahead and prepare for fresh challenges. For Indian players, it’s Mission T20 World Cup now. The event begins in England on June 5 and at stake is the title they won nearly two years ago in South Africa.

“We are really confident about doing well in England but we are under no pressure as defending champions. The team is very confident because all our players are in good form,” middle-order batsman Suresh Raina, who has emerged as one of the top T20 batsman in the Indian ranks, said on Wednesday.

“Our biggest strength is our allround ability. Even our top batters took plenty of wickets in the IPL. Yuvraj Singh got two hat-tricks while Rohit Sharma got one. Yusuf (Pathan) has been quite effective with both bat and ball and as far as I am concerned, I am enjoying my stint with the ball and I’m confident of doing well with the bat as well.

“Similarly, our bowlers are the best in the business. Our openers are one of the best in the world and everything combined makes us a very potent side. Even during the IPL, players of other countries were talking about our allrounder strength and that really made us feel good,” Raina said.

Raina pointed out that the team in recent times has got hooked to the idea of winning. “We hate to lose. Our performance under MS Dhoni, who is a world class captain, has been very good. Each one of us in the team focusses hard on the role assigned to us by the team management. At the same time, we compliment each other’s success and that is our success mantra,” Raina said.

Yusuf Pathan also felt that the momentum was with Team India. “We have some of the best players in the world and we are hungry. I know that expectations are high but I can assure you that the players are all pumped up for the show,” Yusuf assured.

All this talk about high level of confidence is fine but what about the form of the openers? Isn’t the team worried about Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir’s indifferent form in IPL?

“It’s not a worry at all. Sehwag is a class act and we all know what he is capable of doing. For him, IPL wasn’t a success, but he is too good a player to have a poor run in two consecutive series. Sehwag is a dangerous player and so is Gambhir. Like me, I am sure the others will be itching to go out and finish the job for our team,” Yusuf said.

Left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, meanwhile, said that winning the IPL with Hyderabad has given his morale that extra boost.

“Our captain will have a lot of options to pick the playing eleven. It’s really a great feeling to be a part of the winning side in the IPL but right now, I am focussing on contributing to my team’s strength in the T20 World Cup,” Ojha said.

So, what was the biggest lesson that he learnt from IPL? “You can’t win all the 14 matches in a competition, but you have to back each other all the time. You may or may not get a chance to show your skills in the middle, but you have to be ready all the time,” Ojha added.

These new stars of Indian team are not worried about the conditions in England.

“Twenty20 is all about momentum. If you are playing matches regularly, conditions don’t matter that much,” Pathan said. “Conditions in England are more or less similar to that in South Africa. In the last one year, we have played and won in different countries, so we don’t bother about changing conditions.”