The curse of wicket in first ball of a Test career
Morning shows the day is one of the oldest proverbs in most human history but former Indian bowler Nilesh Kulkarni would not agree with such saying.
Not many people may remember this six-feet-four-inch tall, lanky spinner but he made a dream start to his Test career. On 2 August, 1997, Kulkarni made his debut and saw his teammates piled up 537-8 against hosts Sri Lanka at R.Premadasa Stadium, Colombo before declaring on the second day.
The 24-year-old must had been envisaging over a million times how he would bowl the first ball and he got the chance after Sri Lankan openers Sanath Jayasuria and Marvan Atapattu coasted to 39.
And how the Mumbai lad started! Atapattu nicked and Indian keeper Nayan Mongia held it to give Kulkarni a wicket in the first ball of his Test career! A dream anybody would cherish, or should one?
Perhaps what happens next would make one compelled not to achieve the feat. As they say the rest is history.
Jayasuria and Roshan Mahanama knitted a mammoth 576-run stand, the erstwhile world record to evaporate any excitement the young man had. Sri Lanka ended with a world record 952-6, the world record which looks unbreakable as Jayasuria made 340.
And poor Kulkarni returned with a sorry figure of 1-195 toiling hard bowling 72 overs. He could play only two more Tests and ended with only one more wicket. To illustrate his ineffectiveness in the format, on his last match when he got the solo wicket of Australian Matthew Hayden his bowling mate Harbhajan Singh got 15 scalps.
The story of Nilesh Kulkarni might strike one or two nineties’ boys when Afghanistan bowler Nijat Masood started off his Test career with a wicket in the very first bowl when he got rid of Bangladesh opener Zakir Hasan at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Wednesday.
Masood was born a year later after the interesting debut of Kulkarni and he became the 22nd player to get a Test wicket in the first ball of a career while the latter was 16th in the list.
Not only the memories of nineties boys, the second wicket stand of Bangladesh, which was over 150 when the report was filed in, may give someone a feel that the dreamlike start may be a curse in disguise.
Among the other 20 bowlers with a wicket in the first ball of a Test, four were one-match wonders. Only four bowlers - Maurice Tate, Keith Miller, Intikhab Alam and Nathan Lyon played over 10 matches.
Cricketers are often known as superstitious and Nijat Masood may be scared with the data that may convince someone about the curse but Lyon could give him huge inspiration.
As Bangladesh fans would expect Bangladesh batters would showcase a juggernaut performance like Sri Lanka during Kulkarni debut but Masood can only hope he would get an illustrious career like Lyon who is still active and just 13 wickets away from 500th scalp.