Team India’s decision to field five debutants in the recent ODI against Sri Lanka in Colombo is not unprecedented. Once, there were seven first-timers for a Test in England including the captain!
Rahul Chahar, who made his ODI debut in Colombo last week. He is pictured here bowling for India U-19 against England U-19 in Canterbury on August 9, 2017. Pic/Getty Images
When India recently fielded as many as five debutants (Sanju Samson, Rahul Chahar, Nitesh Rana, K Gowtham and Chetan Sakhariya) for the third and final one-day international against Sri Lanka with the series already clinched, I wondered whether this is unprecedented in Indian ODI cricket.
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I later discovered that it had indeed happened before—at Melbourne, where Sunil Gavaskar’s Indians played their first game of the triangular series for the World Series Cup—40 seasons ago.
Dilip Doshi, Kirti Azad, Roger Binny, Sandeep Patil and TE Srinivasan were the 1980-81 debutants and underdogs India stunned the hosts in the first ever India v Australia ODI.
I peered through pages of the past to find players and their fellow debutants.
WV Raman, the former India batsman, had interesting Test and ODI debuts. He began his ODI career against the 1987-88 West Indian tourists at Kolkata, where Sanjeev Sharma and Ajay Sharma also played their first game for India. A few days later, Raman was part of Ravi Shastri’s Test team (he was captain as Dilip Vengsarkar got injured) against the same opponents in Chennai, where Narendra Hirwani and Ajay Sharma debuted too.
Chennai-based Raman told me on Tuesday that he was officially added to the squad only the night before that Chennai Test and he had to keep telephoning Shastri all day at the Taj Connemara to check if the selectors had agreed to his inclusion. “Ravi told me during the ODI series that he would need me in Chennai and he got his way with the selectors,” recalled Raman, who checked in at around 8:30 pm to be part of next day’s Test match against the world’s best side.
Raman scored 83 at one-drop in the second innings at Chennai where leggie Hirwani dominated to equal Australian Bob Massie’s record 16-wicket haul on Test debut. Ajay Sharma, the third debutant, could manage 30 and 23 with the bat. All this contributed to India’s first win over the West Indies in 10 years. West Indies won the opening Test in New Delhi followed by draws in Mumbai and Kolkata.
There are other instances of three India players making their debut in the same game. Sachin Tendulkar, Salil Ankola and Vivek Razdan played their maiden ODI together at Gujranwala on the 1989-90 tour of Pakistan. Tendulkar and Ankola also made their Test debuts in the Karachi Test of that tour.
My favourite example of three cricketers getting their first taste of Test cricket in one game is Mohali 2001, when Tinu Yohannan, Iqbal Siddiqui and Sanjay Bangar were let loose on England in that order by skipper Sourav Ganguly on Day One of the Test. It was the first time three Indian pace bowlers made their debut in one game. India outplayed England in the Test and when the hosts had to score just five runs for a 10-wicket win, Siddiqui surprisingly walked out to open the innings with Deep Dasgupta and scored the winning run after a boundary. His debut was his last match for India.
At Birmingham in 1996, Test caps were awarded to four Indians—spinner Sunil Joshi, seamers Paras Mhambrey and Venkatesh Prasad—as well as opening batsman, Vikram Rathour. England too had debutants in left-arm pacer Alan Mullally, spinner Min Patel and Ronnie Irani. Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid were capped in the next Test at Lord’s. Talking of Lord’s, Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi’s 1946 Indian team had seven first-timers for India—the skipper himself, Vijay Hazare, Vinoo Mankad, Rusi Modi, SG Shinde, Gul Mohammad and AH Kardar; the last two players went on to play for Pakistan post-partition.
India’s first Test at home—against England at the Bombay Gymkhana in 1933, witnessed five debutants—Lala Amarnath, Vijay Merchant, L Ramji, LP Jai and RJD Jamshedji. Amarnath famously became India’s first Test century-maker then.
Later in the series, Dilawar Hussain, MJ Gopalan, Mushtaq Ali and CS Nayudu stepped on to the field at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens as four debutants. The same number of players (Hemu Adhikari, JK Irani, G Kishenchand and Khandu Rangnekar) made their debut in India’s first Test after independence—against Australia at Brisbane—in 1947-48.
The Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai’s second Test venue after the Bombay Gymkhana, played host to multiple debutants on a few occasions. In 1952-53, the India newbies against Pakistan were wicketkeeper V Rajindernath, opening bowler HT Dani and batsman Madhav Apte. The late Apte used to often state that his Test debut was more special because he walked out to open India’s innings with Mankad, who was his coach at college level. Interestingly, Amritsar-born Rajindernath stumped four Pakistanis in that Test without taking a catch. He was not needed to bat and didn’t play another Test.
Future captain Nari Contractor, opening batsman Vijay Mehra and opening bowler Sadashiv Shinde formed a debut trio for India’s Brabourne Stadium Test against the New Zealanders in 1955-56. The visitors succumbed to an innings defeat, caused by Mankad’s double century and Subhash Gupte’s eight wickets.
In 1958-59, the Brabourne Stadium crowd witnessed the debuts of all-rounder Chandu Borde, policeman pacer Ghulam Guard and middle-order batsman Manohar Hardikar, who earned the reputation of a wily captain in domestic cricket for Mumbai.
Guard grabbed a caught and bowled chance to send back star batsman Garry Sobers for 25 on the first morning and while heading back to the Cricket Club of India pavilion, the great West Indian is believed to have told Guard, “That’s the biggest arrest you’ll ever make.”
Debuts throw up future heroes and under-achievers. The five who made their ODI debut for India last Friday, know it.
They’ve also probably heard of the term flatter to deceive. Good luck.
mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello
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