India's Navdeep Saini recently claimed the scalp of debutant Will Pucovski in his maiden test match.
VS Hazare - AV Bedser, Lord's 1946
Vijay Hazare dismissed England's Alec Bedser as his first test scalp when India faced England at Lord's in 1946.
SG Shinde - JT Ikin, Lord's 1946
In the same test that included the VS Hazare - AV Bedser pair, India's SG Shinde dismissed England debutant JT Ikin.
Arshad Ayub - WKM Benjamin, Delhi 1987/88
Hyderabad's Arshad Ayub got the better of debutant WKM Benjamin in Delhi in 1987/88. Ayub went on to play 13 test matches for India during which he picked up 41 wickets at 35.07 and scored 257 runs at 17.13.
Zaheer Khan - Mehrab Hossain, Dhaka 2000/01
Zaheer Khan made his test debut against Bangladesh in Dhaka in November 2000. The left-arm pacer bagged Bangladesh's Mehrab Hossain as his first dismissal. Hossain was also making his debut in test cricket and was caught by wicketkeeper Saba Karim off just 4 runs on the 18th delivery that he faced.
Zaheer went on to pick up two wickets while conceding 49 runs from 21 overs in the first innings. He picked up one wicket from his 5 overs at an economy of 4.00 in the second innings.
As it turned out, it was the first of many wickets to come for Zaheer Khan who finished his test career with 311 wickets from 92 matches at an average of 32.94 and an economy rate of 3.27 to become one of the most successful left-arm bowlers for India.
Zaheer ended up with 15 four-wicket hauls, 11 five-wicket hauls and one 10-wicket haul in his career and also scored 1231 runs.
NA Saini - WJ Pucovski, Sydney 2020/21
In the recently-concluded test series between India and Australia, Navdeep Saini had a wicket in his column in the first innings of the third test match at Sydney. In the same match, Will Pucovski, who had recovered from concussion, made his debut as well and came out to open the batting alongside David Warner.
While Warner was dismissed early, Pucovski looked good at the crease and made a half century in his debut innings in test match cricket. It took a brilliant in-ducker from Navdeep Saini to finally trap the opener in front of the wickets.
It was Saini's first wicket in test match cricket after he had picked up 132 wickets from 47 first class matches at an average of 28.50 and a strike rate of 59.4. Saini improved as the match went forward and finished with 4 wickets in his maiden test.
