Hasan Raza controlled the ball superbly. He took the field against Zimbabwe before he turned 15 in October 1996 and batted once, scoring 27 runs from 48 deliveries at No. 5.
However, doubts were later raised regarding his age and the PCB withdrew the claim that Raza was the youngest men’s Test debutant in the history of the game.
Whether he was 14 or 15, as some claimed, he showed tenacity on the international stage, but to no avail. He played one more Test before the turn of the century and was then dropped from the game. A recall in 2002 resulted in his only two Test fifties against Australia – slow knocks of 54* and 68. However, he never enjoyed the same success as in first-class cricket, where he scored 13,949 runs over a 20-year career.
Mohammad Sharif broke into the Bangladesh team in 2001 with his impressive performances in the National League, being one of the rare bowlers in the country at that time who could make the ball turn. In his ODI debut against Zimbabwe, he took 1 for 31 in a period of ten overs, although Zimbabwe achieved a comfortable seven-wicket win in Harare.
Sharif lost his place in both the Test and ODI teams in 2002. The following year he suffered a groin injury that required surgery, followed by a nine-month layoff and four years away from the national team. His six-year stop-start career with Bangladesh included just 19 caps – and, along with that, an unflattering bowling average of 79.00 in Tests and 42.40 in ODIs.
By the time he finished, all-rounder Mushtaq Mohammad was a stalwart of the Pakistan game. He was one of the five famous Mohammed brothers who emigrated to Karachi after the partition of India, and in March 1959 he played for Pakistan for the first time in Lahore at age 15. He was bowled in the six-over match against the West Indies, specializing in leg breaks, googlies and flippers, and then made 18 runs in both innings.
However, his meager debut earnings were no indication of what was to come.
He was a pioneer in reverse sweeping, playing 57 Tests and even captaining the team in 19 of them. However, his 3643 runs and 79 wickets in his country’s format were overshadowed by his performances in Northamptonshire, which continued until 1985. By the time he finished first-class cricket, he had scored 31,091 and taken 936 wickets, most of them in county jumper form.
Fast bowler Aaqib Javed passed Desmond Haynes’ century when he made his ODI debut against the West Indies in December 1988, when he was just 16 years old. However, he escaped relatively unscathed, taking 1 for 49 from his nine overs.
Over the years, he has made a name for himself as a proponent of traditional Pakistani reverse spin bowling. His biggest claim to fame was 7 for 37 against India in 1991 – the highest figures in a men’s ODI for nearly a decade, including a hat-trick in which he defeated Ravi Shastri, Mohammad Azharuddin and Sachin Tendulkar.
However, he has consistently fallen behind Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in the pecking order. He got his chance to shine when he opened the bowling in their triumphant 1992 World Cup campaign when Waqar was sidelined by injury, and took ten wickets at an average of 29.81. He achieved most of his success with a white ball in hand, playing 163 ODIs for Pakistan before his career ended in the late 1990s.
As Sooryavanshi prepares, he will follow in the footsteps of Tendulkar, who made his debut in Karachi in 1989. Tendulkar broke the Indian record for youngest debutant, which was previously held by L. Sivaramakrishnan, who was 17 years old when he played against the West Indies in 1983. Tendulkar – India’s record holder for the next 37 years – scored 24 off 15 balls before being bowled by Waqar Younis.
Tendulkar soon transformed from a precocious teenager to India’s great hope in the dismal 1990s and then to a senior professional who produced a century and became the game’s most prolific scorer. Even at the end of his career, he retained the ability to attract viewers like no other. Sooryavanshi is at the start of his career but he has the same amazing talent and ability to turn heads when he makes his debut in Manchester.