Circumstances forced selectors to draft Mayank Agarwal into the Indian team, but the 27-year-old grabbed the opportunity with both hands on Wednesday by becoming the highest Indian scorer on Test debut in Australia.
Sent Down Under as injured Prithvi Shaw's replacement, Agarwal dominated the Day 1 of Boxing Day Test by hitting 76 of 161 balls with the help of eight fours and one six against a potent Australian bowling attack at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), Melbourne.
Previous highest score by an Indian on debut in Australia was Dattu Phadkar (51) at the Sydney Cricket Ground in December 1947. 71 years ago!
He departed at the stroke of Tea, caught behind off the fifth ball of the 55th over, bowled by Pat Cummins.
He stitched a 40-run stand with opening partner Hanuma Vihari, then posted 83 more with Cheteshwar Pujara. India were 123/2.
All You Need To Know About Agarwal:
- He became the 295th India Test player.
- He is the 26th player from Karnataka to play Test cricket.
- Only other Indian opener to make Test debut in Australia was Amir Elahi in 1947.
- He made the First-Class debut against Jharkhand in 2013. He made 90.
- A prolific scorer in domestic cricket, he hit his maiden First-Class triple century (304) vs Maharashtra in the 2017–18 Ranji Trophy.
- He has played 46 First-Class and 75 List A matches for Karnataka.
- He hit 723 runs in 8 matches at 90.37 in the 2017-18 Vijay Hazare Trophy.
- He is the highest run-getter in one season of Vijay Hazare Trophy. The previous record for most runs in a List-A tournament belonged to Sachin Tendulkar (673 runs in 2003 World Cup).
- He was the leading scorer (2141 runs) in the domestic season across all formats in 2017-18.
- He was the leading run-scorer in Ranji Trophy 2017-18 with 1160 runs in 8 matches, thus winning the Madhavrao Scindia Award.
- He is currently with the Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League.
