KL Rahul’s feat in perspective

Here is a list of all those who have scored 75 or more on their ODI debut:

It can be seen that Rahul is 11th on this list, and the only one to have scored a neat 100. Just below him is SP Patil of the UAE with 99 not out. While there have been  three 99s on Test debut, none of them were unbeaten. In fact there are no unbeaten 90s on Test debut.

SP Fleming was out in the 90s both on Test and ODI debut. Andy Flower, Desmond Haynes and Praveen Amre are among others who made a fifty-plus on both Test and ODI debut.

Note the big gap between the highest score here (148) and the next (124).

There is at least one case (Shahid Afridi, 102 in 1996) who scored a century in his first ODI innings (in the then record of 37 balls), not having batted in the first. Similarly Yuvraj Singh scored 80 in his first innings in his second ODI in 2000.

Here we see the list of  all Indian players with 40 or more on debut, which was headed by Uthappa and now by Rahul:

Patel and Wadekar scored their fifties in India’s first-ever ODI, while Ashok Mankad followed in the very next match. Sidhu is the only one here to do this in a World Cup match (1987), while PK Amre is the only one to score fifty-plus on Test as well as ODI debut. Both of them came against South Africa soon after its comeback, in an ODI in 1991-92 and a Test in 1992-93.

 

 

Eclectic score cards for ODIs

This is a follow-up from the last post

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/eclectic-score-cards-for-tests/

Now we take up ODIs in the same way. Though others interested in cricket statistics may disagree, I have removed ODIs involving multi-national teams such as the ICC World XI, Africa XI and Asia XI.

First, the highest scores at various batting positions in all ODIs:

Interesting that Kapil’s 175* in 1983 is the oldest record standing, followed by Viv Richard’s 189* in 1984. That was the only ODI played at Tunbridge Wells, and there is no video of this match available because of a dispute with the BBC at that time.

Now for Indian players:

Interesting that the records for numbers 9 and 10 came in the same match.

Now we look at all debutants in ODIs:

Interesting that Haynes’s record of 1978 still stands.

No debutant from India in the above table. Their details are here:

Oddly enough Brijesh Patel’s 82 from India’s very first ODI in 1974 is still a record.

Some may be thinking of Yuvraj Singh’s 84 at No 5 in 2000. But that was in his second ODI, while he did not bat in the first. (Shahid Afridi’s 37-ball century had a similar story).