STATISTICS
Famous Debutants
Quite a few celebrated cricketers made their Test debuts in series between
India and England.
Let's take a look
at some cricketers who went on to have successful careers, some of whom even
entered the record-books:
. Sourav Ganguly (India) at Lord's, 1996- After more than four years
since his ODI debut, Sourav Ganguly celebrated his maiden Test appearance with
a splendid century. Ganguly, who was born and brought up in Kolkata where the
ball tends to seam around like it does in England, was quite comfortable in the
conditions at Lord's and displayed better composure than the senior players in
the team. He batted for more than seven hours and hit 20 fours in his 131. He
went on to score another hundred in his next Test, also against England at
Nottingham.
. Rahul Dravid (India) at Lord's, 1996 - The current Indian captain made
his Test debut in the same game as his predecessor. He scored 95 in his first
Test innings and followed it up with 84 in the next Test at Nottingham. He is
on the verge of becoming the sixth Indian, after Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev,
Dilip Vengsarkar, Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble to complete a century of
Test appearances. The third Test of the ongoing series against England will be
his 100th. He is the only cricketer to have scored Test hundreds in each of the
ten Test-playing nations.
. Anil Kumble (India) at Manchester, 1990 - The unconventional
leg-spinner bowled decently on his debut, but his performance was overshadowed
by that of another youngster; the 17 year-old Sachin Tendulkar, who scored his
maiden Test hundred in the second innings. Kumble went on to become India's
leading strike bowler in the 1990s and was primarily responsible for making
India virtually unbeatable on home soil. He is only the second bowler to take
all ten wickets in a Test innings. At the time of writing, he is only two
wickets short of becoming the fourth bowler after Courtney Walsh, Shane Warne
and Muttiah Muralitharan to take 500 Test wickets.
.
Mohammad Azharuddin (India) at Kolkata, 1984-85: A Test debutant at the age of
21, Azharuddin became the seventh Indian to score a century on debut. It took
him 382 minutes and 288 balls to reach three figures. He was also associated in
a 214 - run stand with Ravi Shastri for the fifth wicket. His appetite for the
English bowling remained insatiable, as he proved in subsequent matches. He
became the first and only batsman till date to score hundreds in each of his
first three Tests - all versus England.
. Yajurvindra Singh (India) at Bangalore, 1976-77: It is not often that one
sees a cricketer who has played only four Tests being the joint-holder of two
world records. Interestingly, Yajurvindra Singh established those records not
for batting or bowling, but fielding, and that too on his debut. His five
catches in the first innings enabled him to draw level with Australian Victor
Richardson as the most successful 'non-wicketkeeping' catcher in a Test
innings. Richardson had achieved this distinction in 1935-36. Singh went on to
take two more catches in the second innings, which took his match-tally to
seven. This made him the joint-record holder for the highest number of catches
taken by a non-wicketkeeper in an entire Test. Singh continues to share the top
spot with none other than Greg Chappell, Richardson's maternal grandson and
current coach of the Indian team. Chappell had taken seven catches in a Test in
the 1974-75 season.
. John Lever (England) at Delhi, 1976-77: The lanky left-arm medium-fast
bowler rocked the Indian batting line -up in the Indian capital with figures of
7-46 and 3-24, to become the sixth Englishman to take ten wickets on his Test
debut. His mixing of away-going and incoming deliveries helped England to post
an impressive innings win.
. Fred Trueman (England) at Leeds, 1952: India achieved the dubious
distinction of losing their first four wickets with no runs on the board in
this Test. The bowler who inflicted the maximum damage was the fiery Trueman,
who accounted for three of the top-order batsmen in a space of eight balls. He
finished with a match analysis of 7-116 and went on to become the first bowler
to take 300 Test wickets. It was alleged after that 1952 series that the Indian
batsmen were so scared of him that they were backing away to the leg-side while
facing him and thus endangering the toes of the leg-umpire!