Shiv Sunder Das made his first class debut in February 1994 against Madhya Pradesh at Indore's Nehru Stadium. The stage was the Ranji Trophy pre-quarterfinals and Das was just 16 years old. Orissa won the toss and chose to make first use of the wicket. Hosts MP had gone into the game with a three man spin attack comprising Narendra Hirwani, Sunil Lahore and DV Parmar who bagged nine wickets between them. But not before Orissa had piled 437 on the board, the bulk of which was made up by hundreds from the blades of P Malhotra and Ranjib Biswal. Das contributed just nine runs to that total but as it turned out he was only saving his best for the later stages of the game.

Madhya Pradesh replied with 370, trailing by 67 on first innings. But the visitors could not afford to bask in the comfort of the lead as the MP spin attack came full throttle at them in the second innings. Faced with the task of batting their opponents out of the game, the Orissa top order seemed to relax their guard which almost proved fatal. Das and Sushil Kumar provided a splendid platform with a second wicket stand of 146 but Parmar then sparked a collapse as Orissa crashed to 244 all out. The pocket sized Das fell just two short of a memorable debut century but his fighting 98 had delayed MP's late surge.

The final target of 312 may have been achievable but for the fact that MP had just 56 overs to get them in. And in the end, it was the host team which was struggling to avert an outright defeat, having lost nine wickets for 230 when the proceedings were finally called off. Das was left out for the quarter finals against Maharashtra as Sanjay Raul returned to skipper the side. Orissa lost that game but they could take solace in the discovery of this stripling of sixteen summers.