India Test Cricket

Indians who have scored Century on Test Debut

Suresh Raina: 12th Indian to score a Century on Test Debut

When Suresh Raina completed his century in the 2nd Test match against Sri Lanka earlier today at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Sri Lanka, he expanded the list of Indians who have scored a century on Test Debut to exactly a dozen now.

Raina has indeed joined a very illustrious and select club of just 12 Indian Greats. Here is the full list:

1. Lala Amarnath
2. Deepak Shodhan
3. A.G. Kripal Singh
4. Abbas Ali Baig
5. Hanumant Singh
6. Gundappa Vishwanath
7. Surinder Amarnath
8. Mohammad Azharuddin (he of course went on to score a century in each one of his first three tests, a record that still stands)
9. Praveen Amre
10. Saurav Ganguly
11. Virender Sehwag
12. Suresh Raina

Saurav Ganguly: The World’s Most Scrutinized Batsman??

Over the last couple of weeks I have read at least 3 different newspaper columns by various cricket experts including Ravi Shastri enlightening me about the number of dot balls that Saurav Ganguly has played in the IPL 2010.

Barely a few minutes back, Michael Holding commentating on Set Max in the ongoing Kolkata Knight Riders vs Rajasthan Royals match reminded me of the fact even as Saurav Ganguly caressed a second four into the off-side boundary in the very first over.

Michael Holding tells me that at 47% Ganguly has the second highest dot ball percentage amongst all openers in this year’s IPL championship.

( ….yet another boundary preceded by a couple of dot balls..that is 66.67% dot balls…)

If Holding would have added that with 3 half centuries, 47 hits to the fence and 11 over it and a total of 389 runs, Saurav Ganguly is the 7th highest scorer in the IPL 2010, I might have been tempted to forgive him. But he ain’t done no such thing….

Compare this: Ganguly has a strike rate of 114.07  thus far whereas Jacques Kallis has an average which is slightly better at 119.64. Yet, have you heard of any criticisim of Kallis anywhere?

All this is not too surprising if you have been avidly following Ganguly’s career and the scrutiny he has faced throughout.

No one, including Ganguly himself would ever make a case of the man being the world’s soundest batsman. But he has defied critics continuously, and raised the bar, whenever the going has been tough. Two prime examples immediately come to mind….

On that famous tour down under when India crashed into Steve Waugh’s farewell party, it was Ganguly who set the tone with a resolute 144 in the 1st Test after his more cherished, more technically sound colleagues had been dismissed cheaply.

Had Ganguly, and alongwith him India, caved in that morning, the rest of the series would likely have taken a most different route from thereon.

The other less famous but what I consider a greater example was the South Africa tour where Ganguly was summoned midway when each and every Indian had proved to be a miserable failure till our man arrived.

Let me help you recollect some amazing statistics:

Ganguly was not a part of the ODI series and this is what happened – the first match was abandoned, India lost the 2nd One Day by 157 runs, the 3rd one by 107 runs, the 4th one by 80 runs and the last one by 9 wickets! Imagine what carnage must have taken place.

Forget their overall totals, not a single Indian batsman figured in the list of the top 5 batsmen for the series. In all, just 2 half centuries were scored by Indian batsmen in a five match ODI series.

Sachin Tendulkar scored a total of 93 runs in his 4 innings.

Then Ganguly was called at the beginning of the Test series.

First India won the pre-test series warm-up match thanks to Saurav. What happened next was bigger.

India, which had been battered and bruised and annihilated 4-0 in the ODI series came back to surprise South Africa and win the 1st Test Match at Johannesburg - India’s first ever Test Victory in South Africa!

Ganguly scored a half-century and was the highest scorer for India in the 1st innings and his brief cameo in the 2nd innings was the 2nd best effort from any Indian.

Overall, Saurav Ganguly finished as the highest scorer for India in that series and was overall the 3rd highest scorer, and overall had the 2nd best average in the Test series. That India couldn’t wrap up the Test series and actually lost tells you how badly the more celebrated Indian batsmen fared in the tough South African conditions.

This was a small couplet I had written during that series on my man:

Even during this IPL he was being dismissed as ‘finished’ when he failed in the first couple of matches. Look at the comeback he has made.

Did you notice that even while showering all the accolades on Ganguly and making a strong case for the Prince of Kolkata I have not even talked about the areas where Ganguly is strongest?

The above is a tale of his exploits in IPL and Tests, areas where his performance has been the ‘weakest’. Now add to this his exploits in the One Day International arena and his super achievements as the captain of India, and you will get a proper perspective on this much scrutinized player.

Saurav Ganguly finished his cricket career as one of the world’s most successful ODI batsmen of all time. For a number of years, he was far ahead of his opening partner Sachin Tendulkar in terms of number and statistics.

He is still India’s most successful captain ever.

What more do you want?

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Post Script: Did you notice Dada’s fielding in this IPL? 2 Karbon Kamaals (sic) for a man pushing 40… korbo, lorbo, jitbo re

Back to the Selection Dark Ages

• Wriddhiman Saha ended up playing the 1st Test vs South Africa as a specialist batsman; his primary skill – wicketkeeping was never tested. Now he has been dropped from the team announced for the 2nd Test Match.
• Ishant Sharma took exactly 0 wickets. More importantly he never looked like taking a wicket. He has been retained in the India team for the 2nd test.
• Who pays for Ishant’s non-show? Newcomers Sudeep Tyagi and Abhimanyu Mithun have instead been dropped: On what grounds? Mithun bowled splendidly in the last Ranji Trophy to claim a spot in the national team. Now he has been dropped unceremoniously for no apparent reason.
• Why has Suresh Raina been selected for the spot of a specialist batsman? Don’t Cheteshwar Pujara and Manish Pandey have stronger claims to a place in India’s Test Team?
  • Manish Pandey averages 72.40 in the 15 1st class matches he has played in. Cheteshwar Pujara averages 57.19 in 46 matches. Instead Suresh Raina who averages 33 has been given a chance.
  • Suresh Raina plays for Chennai SuperKings. Could that be a factor that is influencing his selection?
  • Ajinkya Rahane has an average of over 57 in 1st class cricket.

For the last decade or so, a semblance of logic and reasoning had finally begun to be seen in India’s team selections. Now it seems that we are back to the selection dark ages when bias of various kinds were more important factors in team selection than merit. Kris Shrikant, the chief selector should have done better – he should have remembered that the selectors had removed him as captain of the India team after he led India to a drawn series in Pakistan, not a bad achievement in 1989. Also dropped from the India team after that series was Vivek Razdan after having claimed 5 wickets in an innings in Pakistan. Razdan was never given a chance again – he finished his career having played 2 Tests only.

It was common in those days for a player to be selected and then dropped after not even being given a chance to play. Are we back to those horrifying selection times?

The Battle for No.1 Begins | India vs South Africa 1st Test Match

Beating India at home in a test series is no easy task, and that is exactly what South Africa will have to do if they are to regain the ICC no.1 Test Team Rank that they lost to India. No team has defeated India in a test series at home in the last five years. Australia was the last team that won a test series in India when they beat the home side 2-1 in 2004. South Africa’s last two tours to India ended once in a defeat and one in a drawn series. However, of all the teams that have toured India in the last decade, if there is one team which has adapted itself best to the Indian conditions it has been South Africa.

South Africa have so far played 10 test matches in India and fared creditably – winning 4, losing 4 and drawing 2. Even Australia doesn’t have that kind of a record in India in the past decade, even during the period when they completely dominated the rest of the cricket world.

What will also work to South Africa’s advantage is the absence of the one man who has been India’s most important batsman in test cricket in the last decade. Rahul Dravid has stood like a wall for India, thwarting the best attacks in the world, helping India both win matches and avoid defeats. In his absence, India will be heavily dependent on Messers Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir providing the team with a good start. If the Protean pacers can remove at least one of the openers early regularly, South Africa may well improve on their win loss ratio in India and finish the series as the world’s no.1 Test Team.