Curse of the first ball
Andrew Miller and Martin Williamson look at the fate of those who took a wicket with their first ball in Test cricket
Nathan Lyon got his Test career off to a flier with a wicket off his first ball against Sri Lanka in Galle. Only 13 other players have taken a wicket with their first ball in Test match cricket. But unluckily for them, this feat often seems to be something of a curse rather than a blessing, given that few of them went on to great things. Here we look at 11 of those debuts
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Australia v England, Melbourne, 1894-95
Coningham played once for Australia, but what's surprising is that he was ever allowed to play for them at all. A colourful character, he once set light to a newspaper in the outfield to "keep warm"; accused an archbishop of adultery with his wife; was sent to prison for fraud and died in a mental asylum. Although he dismissed MacLaren with the first ball of the match on his debut, he took only one more wicket and blotted his copybook in the second innings when he responded to being no-balled by deliberately bowling a beamer at MacLaren.
Bill Bradley - Frank Laver
England v Australia, Manchester, 1899
A big and powerful fast bowler, Bradley took 5 for 67 on his debut as a
24-year-old, including Lever with the one over he
bowled before the close of the first day of the match. It was harder work
thereafter. In the second innings he took one wicket but had a crucial
chance dropped by wicketkeeper Dick Lilley and, retained for the final Test
at The Oval, he bowled tightly but with no success. England did not have
another home Test for almost three years, by which time Bradley - a rarity
in that he was a fast bowler who was also an amateur - was in his final
season before retiring.
George MacCauley - George Hearne
South
Africa v England, Cape Town, 1922-23
It was a memorable Test debut at Newlands for MacCauley. Firey, hostile and
sometimes wicked, according to team-mate Bill Bowes, not only did he dismiss Hearne - caught off " a feeble attempt" (The Times) in the
slips by Percy Fender - with his first ball, he followed up with 5 for 61 in
the second innings, and then from his No. 11 spot, hit the winning run as
England squeezed a one-wicket win. MacCauley's debut came less than two
years after he quit his job as a bank clerk after some good performances for
Yorkshire. He won only four more caps after that tour, with limited success.
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England v South Africa, Birmingham, 1924
Probably the most successful of this elite club, Tate's father had played one disastrous Test against Australia in 1902. Tate junior made his debut against South Africa on a pitch ideally suited to his fast seam bowling, and his first ball dismissed Susskind, who was also making his Test debut, for 3. Inside an hour, Tate (4 for 12) and Arthur Gilligan (6 for 7), his captain at both county and country level, bowled South Africa out for 30. Tate produced the ball of the match to remove Herbie Taylor, the visitors' captain, which The Times said "came back like lightning from the line of off stump to send the leg cartwheeling". He never looked back, and that winter took 38 wickets against Australia, a record series aggregate for more than three decades.
Matt Henderson -
Eddie Dawson
New
Zealand v England, Christchurch, 1929-30
Not only was it Henderson's first Test, it was also New Zealand's, against a
third-string England side again led by Gilligan (a stronger XI was also
playing a Test in Barbados at the very time this game was happening). As
expected, New Zealand were no match even for this team, and England
completed an eight-wicket win inside two days. Henderson, who came on second
change, dismissed Dawson with his first ball, and then Frank Woolley
is his second spell, but lacked control and was dropped. In fairness, Test
cricket came too late for Henderson, who was 35. He played three more games
before retiring.
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England v West Indies, 1939
Fate conspired to limit Johnson to one appearance in the last Test before the Second World War, a match which was also his last in first-class cricket. A left-arm quick bowler, he was 22 and full of promise when Keaton, recalled for his second Test five years after his debut after a triple hundred against Middlesex, attempted to leg glance his first ball in the match's second over and clipped it into his leg stump. It was an adventurous shot given that Johnson had three leg slips posted. Johnson added the wicket of Len Hutton shortly before lunch - caught and bowled off a checked push - but one more second-innings scalp was the sum of his Test career. He had also taken a wicket with the first ball of the tour at Worcester.
Dick Howorth - Dennis
Dyer
England v
South Africa, The Oval, 1947
Howorth was robbed of his best years by the Second World War and his
international chances beforehand were blocked by Hedley Verity. But in 1947
Howarth, by then 38, finally got his chance and with his first ball had Dyer caught at cover trying to drive, and followed soon after by
removing Dudley Nourse in an identical fashion. He finished with six wickets
in the match - Wisden said he was the pick of the bowlers - and made
four more appearances that winter in the Caribbean, where he shouldered an
injury-ravaged attack. He retired in 1951 when as effective as ever because
"it's not as much fun as it was".
Intikhab Alam - Colin MacDonald
Pakistan v Australia, Karachi, 1959-60
Intikhab is a rarity in this group in that he actually went on to have a long and distinguished career, eventually captaining his country. Drafted in as an 18-year-old for the final Test of a turgid series, Intikhab bowled opener MacDonald with his first ball late on the second evening, finishing with three in the match. The game itself was forgettable, and a bewildered President Eisenhower, who popped in for a couple of hours on the fourth day, must have wondered what an earth he was watching. His visit coincided with the slowest day in Test history - in three sessions, Pakistan made 104 runs for the loss of five wickets. Unsurprisingly, no leader of the free world has been back to a Test since.
Richard Illingworth -
Phil Simmons
England
v West Indies, Trent Bridge, 1991
An unassuming man with an unassuming moustache, Illingworth
was the Ashley Giles of his day - a solid, professional, left-arm
spinner, whose absence of flair was a blessed relief for an England
management that had been exhausted by Phil Tufnell's histrionics on
the Ashes tour six months earlier. Although he formed a vital cog in
the one-day side that reached the World Cup final in 1992, he played
just nine Tests in four years, and never trumped the events of his
very first match. David Lawrence had just made the breakthrough when
Illingworth came on to bowl, and his very first delivery - a gently
flighted tweaker - bobbled off Simmons's bat and inner thigh to
roll inexorably onto the stumps. Appropriately enough, the thunder of
his moment was quickly stolen by the BBC, who were already halfway
into their fade-out to a news bulletin.
Nilesh Kulkarni -
Marvan Atapattu
India
v Sri Lanka, Colombo, 1996-97
First appearances can be deceptive, as Kulkarni discovered to
his cost on one of the more topsy-turvy Test debuts in history. He
must have thought it was a mug's game when, with a fat Indian total of
537 for 8 in the bank, he found Atapattu's edge as soon as he
was thrown the ball. His glee, however, was shortlived. Sanath
Jayasuriya and Roshan Mahanama soon set about teaching him a lesson or
two about the rigours of Test cricket as they compiled a phenomenal
second-wicket stand of 576, the first 500-plus partnership in Test
history. Sri Lanka's total of 952 for 6 dec was also a record, and
Kulkarni didn't take another wicket in 69.5 overs of the hardest toil.
In fact, he added just one more in his three-Test career, that of
Matthew Hayden at Chennai in March 2001, the game in which his
spin-partner, Harbhajan Singh grabbed a series-stealing 15 for 217.
Chamila Gamage
Lakshitha - Mohammad Ashraful
Sri
Lanka v Bangladesh, Colombo, 2002
A man with as many first names as Test wickets, Materba Kanatha
Gamage Chamila Premanath Lakshitha was given his opportunity in the
second Test of a dismally one-sided series against Bangladesh. After
victory by an innings and 196 runs at the Premadasa, Sri Lanka rested
nine players, including Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas, and
Lakshitha, a 23-year-old Air Force recruit, was given his chance to
impress. He duly did so, taking 3 for 81 in the match, including the
illustrious first-ball scalp of a young Ashraful, bowled for
1 by a typical inswinging delivery. It was not the launchpad to
greater things, however, as he played just one more Test, against
South Africa at Centurion, before being jettisoned for good.
* The other two are Ted Arnold (Victor Trumper), Dennis Smith (Eddie Paynter).
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