Centurian debut
Earning the prestigious cap for your country is every cricketer’s most cherished dream and when you don the cap of India, you have to live up to multifold expectations of a nation where cricket is like religion.
Most cricketers decide to work their way up rather playing it safe but there are those like Azharuddin who arrive with an explosion.
Azhar recounts his famous debut “I think I was not supposed to play in that Test because Sunil Gavaskar was the captain and he wanted to go in at number five. But the selector at that time, Chandu Borde, insisted that I play that game. So I was very nervous.”
It’s one hell of an achievement to let the world know your arrival with a brilliant century while making debut for your country, as Azhar did with his 110 against England in 1984. It really takes a different kind of breed to repeat that performance and just go out and smash another century in your next match. Azhar scored played a brilliant 105 innings against England in the very next match.
For good measure, Azharuddin wasn’t done yet with only scoring two centuries. It was the third Test at Kanpur where he scored 122 runs to cap off a scintillating debut which remains unmatched to this date.