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Does a great debut mean a great player

slugger

State Vice-Captain
Ive put the list of the top 5 debut

BATTING

Player--------debut score-M-inn-runs-HS-avg-100/50
RE Foster 287-------------8-14-602-287-46.30-1/1
JA Rudolph 222*-----------35-63-2028-222*-36.21-5/8
LG Rowe 214-------------30-49-2047-302-43.55-7/7
MS Sinclair 214-------------32-54-1595-214-32.55-2/4
Kuruppu 201*-------------4-7-320-201*-53.33-1/-

BOWLING

Player---------debut BB-M-inn-runs-wkts-avg-5w
AE Trott 8/43--------5-8-390-26-15.00-2
RL Massie 8/53---------6-11-647-31-20.87-2
ND Hirwani 8/61--------17-28-1987-66-30-10-4
L Klusener 8/64--------49-84-3033-80-37.91-1
AL Valentine 8/104-------36-63-4215-139-30.32-8
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
There is no correlation between the two.

You can find all kinds of examples great debut-great career, bad debut great career, bad debut bad career, great debut bad career and all other permutations once you introduce average careers, average debuts and so on :)
 

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
There is no relationship..it has nothing to do ultimately with whether a player will become great or not.
Both Imran Khan and Tendulkar had average debuts.
 

bunny

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
If a player is really talented more often than not he will be blooded early, and as such will be close enough to an average experienced player.

Or in other words, usually when somebody debuts, it's not as if he should have been in the team a year or 2 years ago, so he is basically a borderline case. So, most probably a good debut, let alone a great debut, would mean a random coincidence.
 

Top_Cat

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Well, first off, the answer to the question for batting is no. In an analysis I ran (was bored, testing out my new software at work), there were no predictors which attained significance with regards runs scored on debut vs an arbitrary definition of 'greatness' (average of 50+ I used). But, some semi-interesting findings emerge just from looking (try to stay awake with me here). The PP plots were relatively normal and the residual scatter was okay so it wasn't a total waste of time. I excluded those who didn't bat on debut; had a quick look at the list, excluding them wouldn't have impacted on the numbers I reckon.

I ran career average vs 100/50/duckon debut through a stepwise regression and no significant relationships appeared even when limited to those who'd played 20 or more Tests, scored 2000 or more runs or who ended up averaging 50+.

The main bit of slight interest was significant correlation between career average and runs scored on debut. The relationship was significant (p<0.01) and mildly (around 0.6) strong and positive. This relationship was still significant with those who'd played 20 or more Tests (less strong, though) but otherwise wasn't significant amongst those with 2000+runs/50+ average. It did, however, get stronger with non-great players (average <35). One of the things I had a bit of a chuckle at was that both 100 on debut and duck on debut were significant and negatively correlated with career average but the relationship was pretty weak so it's probably just statistical bull****.

So, no matter how many runs a great player scores on debut, none of the predictors above were able to significantly predict their average but for a non-great player, it seems to do okay-ish. So, if you suspect a player is crap and they do crap in their Test debut, you're probably right. haha
 
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zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Yes.

Consider Jonathan Trott. He got a 100 on debut and now has a Test average of 80. Yes, that's right, 80. How do you explain that away? Is it mere coincidence? I think ****ing not.
 

Stapel

International Regular
No......


However, I guess it's far more likely that players with a poor or average debut, will turn out to become top class players, than a poor player playing his solitude great innings on debut.
 

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