Rabbits ~ No.10 debutant Abul Hasan scores a century

Heard of ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit’ and ‘Raja Chinna Roja’ ! ~ ~ ~ ~ Rabbits  - the cute little animals - are small mammals in the family Leporidae. The male is called a buck and the female is a doe.  ‘ a deer caught in the headlights’ -  means ‘to be so frightened or surprised that you cannot move or think’ – it is stated that deer and rabbit when caught in the glare of the vehicle headlight, would stop dumb. 

Do you know what brackets – Lala Amarnath, Abbas Ali Baig, Shodhan, Hanumant singh,  AG Kripal Singh, Gundappa Vishwanath, Surinder Amarnath,  M Azharuddin, Sourav Ganguly, Praveen Amre, Virender Sehwag and Suresh Raina. ?

In Cricket terminology – Rabbit is no. 10 or no. 11 batsmen -  particularly incompetent – specialist bowlers but incapable of scoring runs.    Bunny is the term used when a higher order batsman gets out frequently to the same bowler.  In 1970s, Indian tail used to start rather early and would capitulate very easily once the top order got out – Bedi, Prasanna and Chandrasekhar were known for making little contribution with the bat and some higher no. of ducks.

At Bangladesh, West Indies were provided a great shock, as Abuil Hassan created history scoring a ton on debut coming in at no. 10.   Abul Hasan became only the second man in 135 years of Test cricket to hit a debut hundred batting at No 10 on the opening day of the second Test against the West Indies. The 20-year-old left-hander was unbeaten on 100 and added an invaluable 172 runs for the unfinished 10th-wicket stand with Mohammad Mahmudullah (72) to help the home team recover from 193-8 to 365-8 at the close.

The earlier instane of a no. 10 scoring century occurred way back in 1902 – it was Australian Reggie Duff  scoring 104 against England at Melbourne.   Ironically, Hasan’s previous highest first-class score was 61.   The pair has set a new record for the 10th wicket in all Bangladesh Tests, beating the 77-run stand between Mashrafe Mortaza and Shahadat Hossain, made against India at Chittagong in 2007.

West Indies bulldozed through the first eight Bangladesh wickets on a flat, low and slow Khulna pitch – then came the heroic innings of  Abul Hasan.  Reports suggest that it was not an innings of a debutant but a breezy boundary hitting and  sensible defending.  

He has become the 2^nd debutant at no. 10 to score a century;  he is the fourth No.10 batsman to score a century - the last such performance came from South Africa's Pat Symcox. Abul is also the third player from Bangladesh to score a Test hundred on debut, after Aminul Islam and Mohammad Ashraful.  Next to  the centuries of RA Duff and Abul Hassan,  from no. 10 debutants is that of  Tim Southee 77* against England at Napier in Mar 2008. 

Getting back to rabbit, ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ was  a 1988 American comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combined live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters interact directly with human beings.

Close on heels was a Tamil film, a Rajni starrer at that ‘Raja Chinna Roja’ released in 1989 – a Tamil children's film directed by SP. Muthuraman. It reportedly was  based on the 1965 English musical The Sound of Music with a song of the original fully used in Tamil. The film was the first Indian film to use animated characters with actors.

The list of Indians that you read in second para of this post  is that of Indian Cricketers who scored a century in their debut in Test Cricket.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

22^nd Nov. 2012.