Top 5 batting fails on Test debut

It’s the ultimate nightmare: you finally make your Test debut… and then you make a pair – a duck in both innings. 

Not even a snick through the slips for a single, or a mistimed drive that dribbles to vacant midwicket. Two ducks. Come on Karma, what have I done to deserve this!?

Called a pair as two scores of zero resemble a ‘pair of spectacles’, the list of Test debutants who have succumbed to the dreaded pair is long and illustrious, with 44 players recording a debut pair over the 141 years that Tests have been played. That represents a debut pair every three-and-a-bit years, although on nine occasions there have been two occurrences in a single year. Some of the more famous victims include Graham Gooch, Ken Rutherford, Marvan Atapattu, Saeed Anwar, Allan Donald and Dean Elgar.

A pair of pairs in 2018

This year Aussie medium-pacer Chadd Sayers suffered a pair on debut in the Joburg Test against South Africa in March, but more recently Irishman Andy Balbirnie suffered a pair in his Test debut in the current Test against Pakistan. Balbirnie’s pair is somewhat more illustrious, as the Irish No 3’s pair was also in his country’s Test debut! Balbirnie was, frustratingly, trapped lbw in both innings by Mohammad Abbas.

Two pairs of Kiwis

The Irish team had three batsmen on a pair in the second innings, but only Balbirnie successfully converted his duck into a pair. Nice one. Hey, at least it’s a record! Most of us will never have any records to speak of in our lives. New Zealand have, however, had two players who converted their Test debut ducks into a pair in their country’s first ever Test match, which was against England in Christchurch in 1930. Step forward, FT Badcock and KC James, and take a bow.

Kiwis can’t help themselves

Not content to leave it at that, the Kiwis are also the only team to twice have two players scoring a Test debut pair in the same match! The first time was in 1930 in their first Test, but 16 years later – against their mortal enemies, Australia, in Wellington – LA Butterfield and CG Rowe matched the non-scoring record of their countrymen from 1930.

Same day, different ducks

Rare as a pair is, how’s this for a coincidence: Marvan Atapattu made his Test debut for Sri Lanka against India on 23 November 1990… the same day Saeed Anwar won his first Test cap (Pakistan against the West Indies). Two future great Test batsmen… four innings… and not a single run between them! Anwar went on to score 4,052 Test runs in a highly respectable career, while Atapattu’s career lasted a lot longer as he went on to score 5,502 Test runs.

Best run of no runs

The first pair on Test debut was by the youngest member of the famous Grace cricket family. Fred Grace (brother of the immortal WG) went 0-0 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1880.

However, the next seven instances of batsmen making a pair on Test debut all belonged to South Africa (from 1892 until 1914), who were then somewhat the whipping boys of big brothers Australia and England. The magnificent seven? CS Wimble, JT Willoughby, JJ Kotze, PS Twentyman-Jones, TA Ward, PT Lewis and CD Dixon.

For the record: stats to go

For your table talk, here’s the full list of players who have scored a pair of ducks on their Test debut:

Source: Cricinfo http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283116.html

Photo By Seb Daly/Sportsfile via Getty Images