Monday, July 13, 2009

A Season for Debutants?

I was randomly thinking about it and then looked it up.

Starting from May 2008 (New Zealand's tour of England and the Australia's tour of West Indies) upto and including the ongoing test matches, here is a list of test debutants.

Sri Lanka:
Ajantha Mendis, Dammika Prasad, Tharanga Paranavitana, Angelo Mathews

Australia: Brad Haddin, Beau Casson, Cameron White, Peter Siddle, Jason Krejza, Doug Bollinger, Andrew Mcdonald, Ben Hilfenhaus, Phil Hughes, Marcus North, Bryce McGain

Bangladesh: Naeem Islam, Mahbubul Alam, Imrul Kayes, Raqibul Hasan, Rubel Hossain, Mahmuddullah

New Zealand: Daniel Flynn, Aaron Redmond, Gareth Hopkins, Jesse Ryder, Tim McIntosh, Martin Guptill

India: Amit Mishra, Murali Vijay

West Indies: Amit Jaggernauth, Llionel Baker, Brendan Nash, Llendl Simmons, Dale Richards, Omar Phillips, Ryan Austin, Travis Dowlin, Chadwick Walton, Kemar Roach, Nikita Miller

England: Darren Pattinson, Graeme Swann, Amjad Khan, Tim Bresnan, Graham Onions

South Africa: JP Duminy, Imraan Khan, Albie Morkel

Pakistan: Khurram Manzoor, Sohail Khan, Mohammad Talha, Mohammad Aamer, Abdur Rauf, Saeed Ajmal, Fawad Alam

That is an extraordinary number of test debutants!

And only the West Indies faced absurd circumstances that resulted in 7 debutants in their ongoing test against Bangladesh.

All the others are for genuine cricketing reasons, if you know what I mean.

I'm not sure if there has been another period in test cricket that has witnessed so many debuts.

There might be, but this to me looks like probably one of the largest number for 3 cricket seasons - 2008, 2008-09, and 2009 as defined on Cricinfo.

So what is it? Is a test cap easier to achieve these days? Or are several teams going through a rebuilding phase? Or have there been too many injuries? Or the boards are just feeling generous?

55 debutants in 15 months of test cricket; I can count only 20 out of them who are or will be regulars for their test teams.

Make your pitch on this post...



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6 Pitched:

  1. Viswanathan said...
     

    Too much cricket, resulting in many breakdowns and as a result so many debutant's.:)

  2. duckingbeamers said...
     

    Nicely researched. I think it's because of many of the teams are in a crucial re-building phase. India went through it in 2007 and 2008 (though its Test team is more stable), but Australia's cannot be explained otherwise, given its recent raft of retirements. It's funny how this works -- in 1996, I felt like I could identify every Sri Lankan member, since they belonged to one of the best in the world. Only a few years later, however, I knew almost no one.

  3. Q said...
     

    Ott,

    That's prob one of the many reasons...

  4. Q said...
     

    Db,

    Thanx. I remember that 96 and SL.. same can be said abt Australia now.. a whole new pace attack, spinners, openers, middle order bats, keeper, its been wholesale for them!

  5. David Barry said...
     

    There's nothing particularly remarkable about the last 18 months - it's just that in the previous few years, there hadn't been many debutants.

    You can see the yearly breakdown here. Or, without Bangladesh or Zimbabwe players (to filter out the spikes when they entered Test cricket or sacked their players etc.) here.

  6. Q said...
     

    Those are interesting lists DB.. I'm surprised to see the high number of debutants in 2002 and 2003.. I guess I don't remember.. the recent tests and the debutants caught my eye and I felt there was a large number in the last 2 seasons.. more than the last 2 years but there have been more before, which slightly surprises me..

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