India versus Afghanistan Test: Here is a glimpse of India’s performance against debutant teams

India will take on Afghanistan, two of the latest entrants in Test cricket (the other being Ireland), in their inaugural five-day game at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru starting June 14. The squads have already been announced and the Indian side will be led by Ajinkya Rahane, a solid middle-order batsman who stands deputy to Virat Kohli in Tests but found his place uncertain in the last Test series that India played in South Africa in January.

This is not the first time that India is not playing a debutant team in any form of international cricket. Be it in Tests or one-day internationals, India has volunteered to play with a number of countries their inaugural international game which has paid off in later years by glorifying India’s name in the international cricket community.

In terms of statistics, it is not that India has always come on the top of the minnows in their debut game. There have been games even when India had to struggle hard to save a defeat and succeeded in saving the disgrace because of their truck-loads of experience. Here we recall some of those matches in which India took on a debutant team and how did they go till the end:

Winning by an innings and 70 runs against Pakistan at Feroz Shah Kotla Ground, Delhi, October 1952

Divided just five years earlier, India played Pakistan in the latter’s debut match in Test cricket at Feroz Shah Kotla Ground in October 1952. The visitors were led by the legendary Abdul Hafeez Kardar, who is regarded as the father figure of Pakistan cricket, for a five-match series. Kardar is one of the only three players to have played for both India and Pakistan.

Kardar’s Pakistan, however, failed to produce any magic in the first game against Lala Amarnath’s India and were spun out of the match by Vinoo Mankad’s spin. The left-arm spinner took 13 wickets for just 131 runs as Pakistan were shot out for 150 and 152 in their two innings, respectively, losing the game by an innings and 70 runs.

India batted first after winning the toss to post 372 with Hemu Adhikari top scoring with 81. For the visitors, Amir Elahi, another player to have represented both India and Pakistan in Tests, was the most successful bowler with 4 for 134 runs. Pakistan did well to win the second match of the series in Lucknow but lost the third in Mumbai (then Bombay) to lose the series.

Drawing one-off Test against Zimbabwe at Harare Sports Club in Harare in October 1992

Zimbabwe made an impressive debut in Tests against India just like they did in the one-day internationals at the 1983 World Cup where they beat Australia. Zimbabwe was led by David Houghton, their most prominent batsman after Andy Flower, who won the toss, elect to bat and slammed a ton against Mohammad Azharuddin’s touring side to see his side posting a formidable 465 runs in the first innings. Manoj Prabhakar took 3 wickets for 66 runs to be most successful Indian bowler. India was then pegged back by the Zimbabwean bowlers, especially the veteran spinner John Traicos, who had also played Test for South Africa before playing for another African country.

It was a patient century from Sanjay Manjrekar which helped India overcome the scare created by Traicos’s 5 for 86 and they ended up at 307. Zimbabwe were 146 for 4 in their second innings when the game was called to be a draw. Even though India did not lose the game but the African debutants certainly made a bigger mark in the match.

Beating Bangladesh by 9 wickets at Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka in November 2000

India hasn’t played many Tests against Bangladesh, who are the youngest Test side at the moment, although it was Sourav Ganguly’s side which played the neighbours in their first-ever Test played in 2000.

This match had a reminiscence of the India-Zimbabwe game played in Harare eight years earlier as Bangladesh, too, posted 400 in their first innings with Aminul Islam hitting 145 and in the process, becoming only the third batsman after Australia’s Charles Bannerman and Zimbabwe’s Houghton to score a ton on debut – for themselves as well as their countries. For India, Sunil Joshi was the best bowler with 5 wickets for 142 runs. India was reduced to 190 for 5 at one stage but it was their lower order which turned the game from there on. While wicket-keeper Saba Karim (his only Test) scored 46 and Ajit Agarkar chipped with 34, it was Joshi’s 92 which saw India overhauling the opponent’s score to take a crucial 29 run lead. The hosts’ skipper Naimur Rahman was the best of the Bangladeshi bowlers by taking 6 wickets for 132 runs. But Bangladesh failed to hold on to their nerves as their second innings proved to be a complete antithesis of the first.

The Tigers were skittled out for a paltry 91 with Javagal Srinath taking 3 wickets for 19 runs. Joshi also took three wickets to make it the most memorable Test of his short career. India then knocked off the required 63 runs in 15 overs with 9 wickets to spare with Rahul Dravid remaining unbeaten in 41. Bangladesh’s unbelievable collapse in their second innings marked an anti-climax in a match which had the potential to be an absorbing contest even if it was Bangladesh’s first.

Beating South Africa by 3 wickets at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata (then Calcutta) in October 1991 (one-day international)

This series was historic from all perspectives for it marked the return of South Africa, one of the best sides the cricketing world had seen till the early 1970s, into the ground after the Apartheid ban (although in ODIs, it was SA’s first-ever match). The team led by the late Clive Rice arrived in India for a three-match ODI series and the team had some individuals who went on to dominate the cricket world in the years to come. One of them was Allan Donald, termed the White Lightning then for his fierce speed and accuracy. In India’s first-ever match against South Africa in any format, Indian skipper Azharuddin won the toss and elected to field first. The game was reduced to 47 overs and the visitors scored 177 for 8 wickets with Kepler Wessels scoring a 50.

Wessels was the only player in this South African team who had made his ODI debut earlier, for Australia. When India came to bat, the 90,000-strong audience was turned into silence by Donald’s storm as he left India reeling at 20 for 3 wickets.

It was then when Sachin Tendulkar (62) and India’s debutant Praveen Amre (55) who held the fort and helped India reach home with three wickets to spare in 40.4 overs. Donald also took 5 wickets for 29 runs and it came on SA’s ODI debut. He also became only the third bowler in the history of ODI to take a fifer on ODI debut.

Next year, India did another first by becoming the first team to take on South Africa in Tests at home and although the first Test in Durban was drawn (Amre hit a magnificent ton on debut in that game), India eventually lost the four-game series 0-1.

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