Praveen Jayawickrama’s records

Debutant left-arm spinner Praveen Jayawickrama played a crucial role in Sri Lanka’s Test and series win against Bangladesh, especially as the first Test was played on a batting paradise.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/player/praveen-jayawickrama-1028665

In the second Test he took 6-92 and 5-86, making a total of 11-178.

This was the best by a Sri Lankan bowler on debut in an innings:

Note that his name appears twice here, for his 6-for as well as 5-for.

And the best match figures by a Sri Lankan bowler on debut:

We see that he is the first Sri Lankan bowler to take 10 wickets on debut.

Now let us see about left-arm spinners on debut:

Jayawickrama has the third-best figures here.

A more surprising result is obtained when we see the match bowling figures of this category on debut:

Here, he has the best match figures of debutants in this category, edging out the famous Alf Valentine’s figures in 1950.

Ten wickets on Test debut

We have earlier seen that as many as 105 players have scored a century on Test debut. 40 of them never scored a century again, and 19 did not even score a fifty again.

We follow the same theme here with the feat of 10 wickets in the match on debut (Fivers on debut will be dealt with separately).

Ten-wicket hauls on debut are far rarer than centuries on debut-since there are only 15 such instances up to 30 Sep 2019.

The column “Inngs” indicates the breakup of wickets in the innings – for example F Martin took 6 wickets in each innings. Clearly it is possible to take 10 wickets with only one fiver, as in the case of Bedser (7 and 4) or Valentine (8 and 3).

Hirwani (16-136) just edged out Massie’s record of 16-137. These remain the best match figures for India and Australia. The only better Test figures are 19-90 by Laker and 17-159 by SF Barnes. The only other 16-wicket haul is by Muralitharan (16-220).

From the last three columns we can see that CS Marriott played only one Test, and Martin, Burke and Krezja only two.

The more durable ones were Bedser (51 Tests), Grimmett (37)  and Valentine (36).

And that 11 of these 15 (i.e. all except Richardson (4), Grimmett (7), Bedser (5) and Valentine (2) ) did not ever take a ten-wicket haul again. They are listed here:

The most durable among these were JK Lever (21 Tests), Hirwani (17) and Farnes (15). Farnes was one of the casualties of WW2. Lever remains the only one to take ten wickets and score a fifty on debut. He did not score a fifty again.

And these 7 players never even took a fiver after their debut:

Massie survived the longest with 6 Tests, followed by Zahid with 5.

Best bowling figures in defeats

Keshav Maharaj’s 9-129 and match figures of 12-283 (along with Theunis de Bruyn’s maiden century) were South Africa’s only saving grace in their loss in the second Test at Colombo (SSC). We now look at the best bowling figures by losing teams in Tests.

Best innings bowling in defeats (including all instances of 8wi and above):

Maharaj’s 9-129 is the fourth-best performance here in a list headed by Kapil Dev’s 9-69. It may be recalled that Noreiga’s 9-95 is the best for WI in all Tests, and that it came in India’s first Test win over the West Indies.

The previous best for South Africa was Hugh Tayfield’s 7-23 in 1950, which can also be seen above.

Valentine and Krejza were making their debuts. Krezja played only in one more Test. Valentine made his debut with Ramadhin, and the two ensured that England lost the remaining 3 Tests of the series.

Best match bowling in defeats (including all instances of 11wm and above):

Here Maharaj’s 12-283 is somewhat down the list which is headed by Srinath’s 13-132 in 1999. The previous best for South Africa was AE Hall’s 11-112 in 1923, which can also be seen above.

Krejza, Hall, Burke and Valentine were making their debuts. Only Valentine got an extended run.