The luck of the debutant?

It must be the luck of the debutant, surely. Owais Shah made fifty in his first Test today, to help give England a solid platform on day one of the third Test against India. But if statistics are anything to go by, luck isn't the main contributor to England's recent successful debutants; they're just bloody good players.

John Stern makes mention of this in his verdict at Cricinfo

But as for Shah's runs, well, this is becoming an English trait and it can't just be beginner's luck. Shah became the fifth successive England specialist batsman to make 50 or more on Test debut. Four of them are in this team and it is a run that stretches back to Strauss' own debut in 2004.

Strauss took to Test cricket with such assured alacrity that he was talked of as a future captain before he had barely played ten Tests. So he was due a bad trot. It is just a shame for England that it has spanned back-to-back Asian tours when injury and other absences has played such havoc with their plans. His innings today was his first score of over 50 in five Tests - and, impressively, his eighth hundred in 24 Tests.

 

For all the fuss about the ageing Australians, and their pension-and-bus-pass debutants, they too have introduced a host of successful new players to Test cricket recently. Brad Hodge made a double hundred - and was dropped for the tour to South Africa. Mike Hussey is Mr Cricket, and looks as though he drinks, eats and sleeps Test cricket. Most recently, Stuart Clark fell one wicket short of becoming just the third Australian to take 10 wickets in his first Test match. These are all remarkable stats, and England are doing it now too.

Strauss' debut against New Zealand in 2004 was a milestone, if only for Nasser Hussain who retired that summer with a "my job's done, it's your turn now" sort of buck-passing. And he was right, too. That summer, England showed immense promise in beating New Zealand and the West Indies, which they continued into the winter when they beat South Africa. But without their firing debutant, Strauss, they'd likely have come up short.

This winter, we've seen Alastair Cook breeze to a hundred, and a fifty in the same game, as though he was born to play the game. Shah, too, has done the same - although retired hurt on fifty owing to cramp. It's been an otherwise disappointing winter for England; the clutch of new players they've had to breed, though, have shown there's plenty of depth in reserve. And that's a massive positive to take into the summer.

Will Luke writes for Cricinfo.com and edits The Corridor of Uncertainty