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Who was the first Indian to score a century on Test debut? (05 September 2001)
Well, that honour rests with the original stormy petrel of Indian cricket, the fiery Lala Amarnath. Lala's hundred came in the second innings of India's second Test, incidentally the first on Indian soil, on December 17, 1933. He was appearing for the CK Nayadu led Indian team against an England team led by Douglas Jardine of Bodyline fame. The 118 runs he scored at the Gymkhana Grounds in Mumbai also made him India's first Test centurion. His heroics though could not save India from a nine-wicket defeat.
The late Lala played another 23 Tests in a turbulent career that saw him clash with the mandarins running Indian cricket on more than one occasion. However his first hundred was to be his last. Deepak Shodhan, AG Kripal Singh, Abbas Ali Baig and Hanumant Singh, the immediate four after him in the list of India's debutant century makers, also could only score solitary Test tons at the end of their respective careers. The man who broke the hoodoo then was a certain Gundappa Rangnath Viswanath who announced his entry on the international stage with a marvellous 137 in the second innings of his debut Test after being dismissed for a duck in the first knock. Vishy, as this glorious batsman and future brother-in-law of Sunny Gavaskar was to be lovingly known, made another 13 hundreds in a career spanning 91 Tests.
For more details on all the above facts check out [ StatsGuru ]
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