Quickly off the blocks

Scoring buckets of runs in a debut series is no guarantee of a long and successful international career - ask David Lloyd , Vinod Kambli or Yasir Hameed- but it's one heck of a first step to take. This week's List looks at players who had the highest run aggregates in debut series of varying length.

The record for most runs in a series by a debutant belongs to Sunil Gavaskar who scored 774 at an average of nearly 155 on India's tour of the Caribbean in 1970-71. He scored a brace of sixties in his first match - the second of the series - in Trinidad, which was India's first-ever Test victory against West Indies.

Gavaskar carried his form through the tour and his contribution - three hundreds, a double, and a fifty - was instrumental in India drawing the last three Tests to secure their maiden series win in the Caribbean. Had he played the first Test, Gavaskar may have challenged Don Bradman's record - 974 runs in the 1930 Ashes - for the highest series aggregate of all time.

The record that Gavaskar did break was George Headley's aggregate in his debut series, at home against England in 1929-30. Headley scored four hundreds, including a double-century, to finish the four-Test series with 703 runs at an average of nearly 88.

South Africa's home series against Australia in 1969-70 was their last before their isolation because of their apartheid government. It was in this series that opener Barry Richards and middle-order batsman Lee Irvine made their debuts. Richards' 508 runs and Irvine's 353 were among the highest run getters for South Africa in the series and they still rank among the top five aggregates for debutants in a four-Test series. Both scored centuries in South Africa's last innings for 21 years - on Irvine's 26th birthday - to set up a 23-run victory and complete a 4-0 victory against the Australians. While Richards went back to play county cricket in England; Irvine, who had a successful season with Essex in 1968, never played outside South Africa again.

The 1972 Lahore Test between Pakistan and New Zealand was a productive one for debutants. For the visitors, offspinner Peter Petherick took a hat-trick on his first day in international cricket while middle-order batsman Robert Anderson fell eight runs short of a century. However, it was Pakistan's teenager Javed Miandad who shone brightest, becoming, at 19 years and 119 days, the youngest player to score a century on Test debut. Miandad scored 163 after Pakistan were reduced to 44 for 5 and added 81 for the fifth wicket with Asif Iqbal to lay the foundation of a six-wicket win.

Anderson and Petherick went on to have ordinary series, and short careers, but Miandad went from strength to strength. He scored 206 in the first innings of the third Test in Karachi, beating Headley's record to become the youngest double-centurion . Miandad missed out on the rare feat of scoring a double and a hundred in the same match when he was dismissed for 85 in the second innings. He finished the series with 504 runs in five innings.

Strangely, the highest aggregate by a debutant in a six-Test series isn't as flash as those of shorter length. Michael Slater's 416 in 10 innings with one century and two fifties during the 1993 Ashes is the best of the lot. Mark Butcher's 254 at an average of 25.40 in the 1997 Ashes is the second highest aggregate.

The highest in a bilateral one-day series belongs to a rather less well-known name. Raman Lamba made his one-day debut against Australia in Jaipur in 1986 and contributed 64 to India's successful run-chase. He played another match-winning innings in Delhi and ended the series with 102 in Rajkot. He was the Man of the Series for scoring 278 runs at 55.60 but that was as good as it got. Lamba, who died in 1998, scored only 505 runs in his next 26 matches at an average of 20.

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