Centurion Test-some obscure facts

JM Anderson took Elgar’s wicket with the 1st ball of a Test (and the series).

Taking a wicket with the first ball of  a match is rare enough to merit a separate list:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283164.html

Anderson is playing in his 150th Test. This by itself is no big deal. But he extends his record of the most Tests without ever captaining his side. Next in line is Warne (144) and Broad (playing his 135th Test) and VVS Laxman (134).

AK Markram is playing his 20th Test. His previous 19 Tests included 11 wins and 8 losses and no draw. He holds the record of the most Tests played without a draw. Next is old-timer GA Lohmann (18 Tests, 15 wins, 3 losses) followed by current player KK Jennings (17/12/5) and Alok Kapali (17/0/17). Jennings may play in the future.

Update: Markram played in his 20th Test at Centurion which SA won. So he extended his record to 20 Tests without a draw (12 wins and 8 losses).

ALSO-6 of the playing 11 for England have a given name starting with J: Anderson, Archer, Root, Denly, Buttler and Bairstow. Would this domination by one letter be a record? Maybe there have been Pakistani teams with more players with names starting with M?

Another oddity: South Africa now have two different Test players named D Pretorius. The earlier Dewald P played 4 Tests in 2002-2003 as a pace bowler:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/player/46784.html

Today Dwaine Pretorius, a pace bowling all-rounder, made his debut:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/player/327830.html

Aiden Markram is back (Updated to Jan 15, 2022)

Refresh your memory here:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/player/600498.html

As readers of this column know, Aiden Markram has the longest palindromic name among international cricketers, with the competition coming from Rangy Nanan and Arun Lal (besides Talat Ali and Naman Ojha).

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/palindromic-names-for-cricketers/

Apart from that, he had a good run at the start, with 97 on debut and centuries in his second and third Tests. (It helps if you are playing at home in South Africa against Bangladesh for two Tests followed by Zimbabwe).

Anyway, he was a sort of lucky charm for South Africa as they won in each of his first 5 Tests. India broke this spell when they won the 3rd Test of the 2017-18 series.

He had a bad tour of India in 2019, making a second-ball pair (or silver pair) in the second Test before being dropped for the third.

Anyway he holds another peculiar record in all Tests. He has played the most Tests (29) without ever seeing a draw, up to Jan 15, 2022. 18 of these matches were won by South Africa and 11 were lost.

The record was earlier held by England’s George Lohmann (18 Tests) of long ago, who saw 15 wins and 3 losses. Next is a recent player KK Jennings (Eng) with 17 (12 wins and 5 losses). Alok Kapali (BD) shares this tally of 17 (0 wins and 17 losses). Once Markram encounters a drawn Test, the record goes back to Lohmann.

I wonder if anyone has told Markram of this record. At least it sounds more impressive than being the 21st batsman to make a silver pair.

Duck and fifty-plus on Test debut

February 12, 2019 is Gundappa Viswanath’s 70th birthday. And the 50th anniversary of his Test debut comes up later in 2019. So it is a good time to review the history of those who scored a century and duck on debut.

This club has only 4 members:

Note that Viswanath was the first member of this club, with a duck followed by a century on his debut. The only other member of this sub–group is Mohammad Wasim.

Then there is AC Hudson and current player KK Jennings who scored a century followed by a duck on debut.

There have been a total of 166 instances of a century and duck in the same Test, starting with WL Murdoch (0 and 153* in 1880) and ending with UT Khwaja (0 and 101* at Canberra in 2019).

We also look at those who scored a duck and 50+ on debut:

From India, there are only Viswanath, DJ Gandhi and GH Vihari.

Against India, there are captain Tony Lewis (1972), the little-known Australian GR Robertson in 1998, Jennings and Dawson in the same series in 2016 and Roshan Silva in 2017.

Those who narrowly missed a century would be Colin Milburn (94 in 1966) and Zulqarnain Haider (88 in his only Test in 2010).

 

 

The Test debutants of 2016-1

A total of 44 players made their Test debut during the calendar year 2016. Here we take a look at their performances in their debut matches and briefly look at their progress until February 2017.

Innings scores of 40 and above:

and match totals of 50 and above:

12 instances of 50+ on debut, including centuries by SC Cook and KK Jennings. 3 others (J Yadav, Dhananjaya de Silva and KS Maharaj) also scored at least 50 runs in the match. H Hameed scored over 100 in his debut match without a century. Jennings became one of only 4 to score a century and duck on debut; GR Viswanath was the first to do so.

Cook has so far made 3 centuries and Dhananjaya  and Handscomb 2 apiece, while others including Gunaratne and Yadav have also scored centuries. Most of those listed above have made steady progress as batsmen (and in some cases as bowlers).

Looking at bowling performances on debut;

4 wickets in an innings:

6 wickets in a match:

The best innings and match performances were by Zimbabwe-born C de Grandhomme. MH Miraz did almost as well, conceding a few more runs. Miraz went on to take two 6-fors in his second Test and was instrumental in Bangladesh’s first Test victory over England. He has also displayed some batting ability in his last few Tests, as has de Grandhomme.

To be continued:

 

 

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.