Top 10 worst debuts in Testcricket... 1.Marvan Atapattu: A former Sri Lankan Captain with a glorious cover drive, he didn’t justhave a shocker of a debut, but the horrendous start to his career stretched beyond one match. He bagged a pair on his debut againstIndia, and followed it up with 3 more ducks in his next 4 innings. He went on to have a pretty successful career for Sri Lanka and in fact, racked up 6 double hundreds in Tests. Only Lara, Bradman, Hammond and Sangakkara have more. 2.Saeed Anwar: One of Pakistan’s best Test openers, Anwar bagged a pair in his Test debut against West Indies. He did not let the disappointment get to him, and was Pakistan’s premier batsman in the 90’s. He had a good record of scoring runs inoverseas conditions. With 11 Test centuries under his belt, Anwar is also the 8thhighest run scorer for Pakistan in Test Cricket. 3.Graham Gooch: England’s leading run scorer in Test Cricket hada dismal start to his career. Making his debut in the Ashes series of 1975, Gooch bagged a pair as Australia romped home by an innings. He played one more match, before being dropped from the team. He made his grand comeback in 1978 and was one of theleading batsmen of his time. 4.Don Bradman: It is quite strange to imagine that a batsman with an average of 99.94would have even a singlebad test match. But yes, Sir Donald Bradman had a rather pedestrian debut. He made just 18 and 1 in his first game against the touring English team, and was dropped for the next match. The rest as they say, is history. 5.Gavin Hamilton: Hamilton, a Scottish by descent, was in contention for selection in national teams of bothScotland and England, forthe 1999 World Cup. He eventually played for Scotland and had a decent outing. Impressed by his performances, the English selectors picked him for England’s tour of South Africa in 1999-00. He was selected for the 1stmatch and had a shocker of a debut. He bagged a pair and went wicketless as England slumped to an innings defeat. He was unceremoniously dropped from the team and has never played for England again. 6.Shahadat Hossain: One of the better fast bowlers that Bangladesh has produced, Shahadat had a forgettable debut against England. He bowled just 12 overs andwas clobbered for 101 runs. England went on towin the match by an innings, sparing him the 2ndinnings blushes. He has had a reasonably good career with 67 wickets from 31 matchessince then. However, marred by injuries, he has fallen out of the Bangladesh CricketBoard’s favour. 7. Shane Warne: Yes, the greatest leg-spinner in the historyof Test Cricket had a horrendous start to his career. His debut came in1991-92 against India. Indian batsmen relished the sight of a spinner, and Warne was smashedto all parts of the ground.His figures were 45-7-150-1 at the end of the Indian innings. Hardly could have anyoneimagined at that point oftime that “the blonde who got bludgeoned”, will turn out to be one ofWisden’s Five Cricketers of the 20thCentury. 8.Vinay Kumar: Making his Test debut against Australia in Perthafter replacing Ashwin, Vinay Kumar was under huge pressure to perform in the must win game for India. But he was quite unlucky to come across David Warnerin full flow. Vinay Kumar was clobbered all over the park as Warner destroyed all in his way to 180 off 159 balls. Vinay did pick up a wicket, that of Mike Hussey and finished withfigures of 13-0-73-1, his only consolation being similar performances of his fellow pacers. He has not won another Test cap since then. 9.Nilesh Kulkarni: Not much success was enjoyed by Nilesh (seen celebrating here with thekeeper) in the international arena. Kulkarni made his debut in 1997-98 against Sri Lanka. He picked up Atapattu’s wicket with the first ball he bowled. He then went on to bowl 69.5 more overs without getting another, as Sri Lanka amassed 952-6, the highest score in Test match history. He went on to play 2 more Test matches for India after a gap of 4 years and picked up just one more wicket. He was not picked to play for India again. He finished with a bowling average of 166 and strike rate of 369. 10.Bryce McGain: Post Warne’s retirement in 2007, Australia was hunting for its next big spinner. Bryce McGain was one of the many trialbowlers. Making a debut at the age of 36 against South Africa in 2008, Bryce was taken to the cleaners. Ashwell Prince and Jacques Kallisensured he never got into his rhythm. His bowling figures were a rather untidy 0/149 from18 overs. Age not being on his side, Bryce McGainnever got a chance to improve his test figures.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 04:18:35 +0000