Sachin Tendulkar, Waqar Younis and 2 forgotten cricketers: The story of 4 Test debuts
15 November is a momentous day in the history of cricket. It was on this day exactly 30 years ago, in 1989, that two legends made their Test debut at Karachi. Those legends are none other than India’s Sachin Tendulkar and Pakistan's Waqar Younis.
While Younis bowled Tendulkar for 15 in the drawn Karachi Test, over the next two decades, the two players would go on to create a big name for themselves in the history of the game -- one with the bat, and the other with the ball.
Tendulkar dominated world cricket like few have done. In 200 Tests, he amassed 15,921 with 51 hundreds and 68 fifties. He also managed 18,426 runs in 463 ODIs with 49 hundreds and 96 fifties. Tendulkar remains the only player in international cricket with 100 international hundreds to his name.
That’s not all. He was also the first male cricketer to score a double hundred in one-day internationals. Till date, Tendulkar is the highest run-getter in international cricket, with a total of 34,357 runs across formats.
As for Younis, he is noted as one of the most lethal fast bowlers of the 90s and the early 2000s, and formed a formidable pairing with Wasim Akram. Younis was one of the greatest exponents of reverse swing and, at his peak, possessed the ability to bowl unplayable yorkers.
In a remarkable career, Younis claimed 373 wickets in 87 Tests and 416 in 262 ODIs. He is currently the bowling coach of the Pakistan cricket team.
While Tendulkar and Younis left their indelible mark on the game, two other cricketers, one from India and one from Pakistan, also made their Test debut in the same game at Karachi. However, they couldn't taste nearly the same amount of success.
Salil Ankola, a talented fast bowler from Mumbai (then Bombay), made his first appearance in Test cricket at Karachi. Ankola dismissed Saleem Malik in the first innings and Saleem Yousuf in the second. However, his career was hampered by injuries, and he did not play another Test.
He featured in 20 ODIs, and was also part of the 1996 World Cup squad, managing a total of 13 wickets in his one-day career. He retired at the age of 28, and moved on to acting in TV shows and films.
The fourth debutant in the match was a Pakistani all-rounder named Shahid Saeed. Like Ankola, this was the only Test Saeed featured in. He scored 12 runs in the only innings he batted, and did not pick up a wicket in either innings.
Saeed went on to feature in 10 ODIs for Pakistan, but scored only 141 runs with one fifty, his highest score of 50 coming against India at Sharjah in 1989.
His last one-day appearance was against Australia at Melbourne in 1993. Saeed managed only three, and was soon a forgotten name in Pakistan cricket.