Debuts and comebacks against India

By Rajadhyax

Here is a piece of advice for all international cricket teams. When ever you people want your promising cricketers to make successful international debuts or your out-of-form-stars to make resounding comebacks, try them against India. Statistics tells us that debutants have done exceedingly well against India, especially when debuting in India. The latest of those examples came in the recently concluded India-South Africa Test series where Alviro Petersen made a strokefull debut at the Eden Gardens scoring 100 in the first innings. He dominated the bowling and did not look perturbed at all while reaching a debut hundred.

If we go a little down the memory lane also we get many fine examples of the kind. In relatively recent times, cricket fans would not forget Australia’s Michael Clarke making a brilliant 151 on debut in Bangalore and taking his team to victory. Or even England’s Alistair Cook scoring 60 in first and 104 in the second innings on his debut against India. Among the bowlers we might remember Aussie off-spinner Jason Krejza picking 8 wickets on his debut in India. Ajantha Mendis of Sri Lanka also made his debut against India at Colombo as he bamboozled 8 Indian batsmen that day. Even England bowler Graham Swann made quite a good debut against India as he snared Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid in his first over in Test cricket. Except Krejza all the others have, after their great debuts, cemented their places in their national Test teams.

Going a little further back you may recollect Bret Lee picking a fiver against India on his debut at Melbourne. Further back South African Lance Klusner bagged 8 wickets on Test debut at Kolkata. In fact, oldies might even remember the great West Indian opener Gordon Greenidge scoring a blistering 93 in the first and 107 in the second innings against India on debut at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Well, there are many more cases, but I guess the data provided so far is enough to ram home the point. And the point being that anyone wanting to make a great debut should hope for making it against India. Chances of success are more even leading to a long and distinguished career later.

More or less similar data is also available about out of favour players making a top-performing-comeback against India as well. Aussie captain mark Taylor had gone into his longest bad-patch of his career and Cricket Australia selectors had seriously thought of replacing him. Then in a Test match against India he scored a patient hundred and saved his place. Almost the same happened to Pakistan’s Javed Miandad many years back when his spell of bad scores was replaced by century in each innings against India. Graham Gooch and Mark Waugh went through a rather similar experience. And Andy Flower of Zimbabwe made history by scoring tons of runs in India after a spate of poor scores earlier.

I think the reason why debutants do very well against India is pretty simple. Unlike the Australians, Indians lack in home work. Before Steve Waugh’s successful series win in India, he sent ‘guys’ to India to evaluate players and especially to look at all players who could possibly make a debut in that series. Even the Sri Lankans are supposed to have done this under the captainship of Arjuna Ranatunga. When did Indians do that?

When everyone knew that Lee would be making his debut in that series, no one had seen his tapes to see what exactly he bowls. All that the Indians knew was that he is a young tear away bowler slated to play. That’s it! Even after Mendis was touted to make his debut, none in the Indian think-tank knew exactly what he does with his fingers to make the ball turn either way. Some players thought the Lankan was going to be a new medium-pacer. Due to this lack of home-work new faces end up making fantastic performances against the country. In some cases where they come to know about a debutant prior to the main matches through practice games, they hardly seem to be making a plan to tackle the man.

But what still remains a mystery is how and why so many out-of-form cricketers always come back in form playing against India. It is uncanny and needs analysis.