Centuries on debut for and against India

Today we look at

1. Test players from India who scored a century on debut.
2. Test players who scored a century on debut, that Test being against India
3. Also those who scored a century AND duck on Test debut.

These figures are as on Jan 17, 2018

Indian players who scored a century on Test debut:

No Indian has achieved this against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. All other Test teams are represented here.

RG Sharma is one of the few to score centuries in his first two Test innings. Azharuddin is not in this category as he scored two centuries in his first three innings.

Those who scored a century on Test debut, that Test being against India:

Interesting that there are 14 members on each of these lists.

No Pakistani player has achieved this against India. All other Test teams are represented.

Finally, KK Jennings became the 4th player to score a century and duck on Test debut in late 2016. The full list is:

Note that Viswanath was the first to score a duck and century on debut.

There are also those who scored a century and an unbeaten zero on debut. An unbeaten zero is not considered as a duck. The only instance in all Tests is that of BR Taylor (105 and 0*) against India in 1965 noted above. That came about in a declaration with 9 wickets down: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62966.html

And Taylor remains the only one to score a century and take a five-for on Test debut.

Next time we will look at fivers and tenners on Test debut.

 

Cricketing coincidences-1

This begins with a listing of all those who have scored a fifty-plus and taken a 5-wicket haul on Test debut:

It is not a long list.

Only 8 instances in Test history. There is only one instance of a century and fiver, which is by Bruce Taylor for NZ v Ind in 1964-65. And there is only one instance of a fifty and 10 wickets, which is by John Lever for Eng v Ind in 1976-77.

Look at the scorecards and you will find something surprising.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62966.html

and

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63174.html

These matches were both against India in India and were separated by almost a dozen years. Bruce Taylor had retired in 1973. But one Indian player who had made his debut just before Taylor was still around in 1976 and continued playing until 1983.

He was S. Venkataraghavan, who played in both of these Tests.

And a minor coincidence: There were only three Test players with the surname Banerjee. All of them played in only one Test despite doing fairly well on debut.

SA (Mantu) Banerjee: 5 wickets in the match v WI in 1948-49: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62692.html

SN (Shute) Banerjee: 5 wickets in the match v WI in 1948-49, which came close to being India’s first Test victory:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62694.html

ST Banerjee: 3 wickets in the match v Aus in 1991-92:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63565.html

However, their arch rivals the Chatterjees and the Mukherjees have not produced any Test players yet. Only a few ODI players.