5 Indian cricketers who had a great start to their international career

Ganguly scored a century on his Test debutInternational cricket is a strange monster. Some started with greatness all over them and never went too far. Some looked mediocre but went on to become greats. Very few looked great, started great and ended great.Much of it is because of the rigors of competitive international cricket which is like the ocean that you can never gauge until you dive into it. Some learn and adapt while some perish. It doesn’t help that the modern game is getting more and more professional with a lot of resources dedicated purely to detect chinks in the armour of every player.Here, we take a look at five Indian cricketers who had an excellent start to their international career, either in Tests or ODIs. Players like Narender Hirwani and Sourav Ganguly miss out from the list because their purple patch right at the beginning wasn’t considerably long.Ganguly had three great Tests and then a reality check followed before he adapted and went on to become one of India’s greatest captains. Hirwani, on the other hand, was largely reduced to the sidelines after the initial success.

#1 Ajit Agarkar

He is the second fastest to 50 international ODI wickets reaching there in just 23 games (fastest in terms of time - 182 days), his record broken by Ajanta Mendis. Agarkar had a streak of 13 matches before going wicket-less for the first time in ODI cricket.

That start included two four-wicket hauls and four three-wicket hauls. He must’ve thought cricket is easy. The man with the golden arm had a whippy action that helped him generate pace and regularly gave breakthroughs ending as one of India’s most successful ODI bowlers.

Agarkar never really did justice to his talent, though, which shone through the Lord’s century (he holds the record for fastest ODI half-century by an Indian) and despite picking up close to 300 ODI wickets (288) doesn’t usually get the respect that India’s top bowlers usually get.