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Karthik Narayan (GOLDEN DEBUT MATCH : India Vs Australia at Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore 7th Oct 2004)

A train chugged along the tracks of Bangalore in Karnataka, in India. That train had started its journey, but it bore neither a destination nor a time frame for completing its journey. After all, the journey had started, why at all think of stopping and completion. That Chugging Chuckler is none other than Michael John Clarke.

Scoring a hundred on debut is really something to dream about. That too against an opposition, which can fire on all cylinders at their own home grounds, that’s asking too much out of a batsman. But tell that to this young man, Michael Clarke, who never ceases to amaze all of us. Maybe, he will have a smile on his face and look up at us as if to say, “What are you talking about? I make things happen!”

The Match is the first of the series and already the Aussies have made it very clear that they are here on a mission with a vision to win! And they won’t think of anything other than positive cricket. True he has played ODIs and he has bloomed very much into cricket for his team, but a century on debut is always special.

Clarke is the 17^th Aus player to score a ton on debut and only 5 other Aussies have gone past the 150 run mark in their first test! The last centurion on debut was Greg Blewett against England at the Adelaide Oval in 1994-95 (102*).

Earlier in the match, Adam Gilchrist the Aussie captain won the toss and had no hesitation in opting to bat first. The start was sedate with a fine tight line by the Indian seamers, Irfan Pathan and Zaheer Khan. Wickets did fall at regular intervals, only Langer managed to score a fifty in the first 4 batsmen in the scorecard. In came our hero – Michael John Clarke, the valiant player of many a cameo in ODIs.

The score was 149-4 and he accompanied Simon Katich to the crease. Katich was striking the ball well, and he had his eye in, so he took on every bowler in sight and started to score some runs freely. Katich was eventually out at 256/5 and his personal score at 81.

Adam Gilchrist then joined Clarke and then onwards it was all these two players to come good. The skipper played freely, and Clarke started to get the upper hand against the bowlers. The way in which Clarke played the spinners, particularly his assault on Kumble was truly spectacular. As many as 4 sixes and 18 fours laced his super innings of 151 off 258 balls. The Dream Innings of Clarke finally came to an end when Zaheer Khan got him out caught by the keeper Parthiv Patel.

But already the damage was done...Clarke had broken the nearly 10 year shackles of a century by an Aussie on Debut and had put his team to a winning position with a huge first innings score of 474.

Well nothing can really stop this Runaway Superstar from trudging on the path of greatness. There’s not going to be any more stopovers for this Batting Express. We at Cricketfundas.com wish this young cricketer to go on and just entertain us with all the hoots and toots that he got to show us.

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