South African dismissed twice on the opening day of his Durham debut as 21 wickets fall at Chester-le-Street
Markram's golden run ends with rare pair
South African opener Aiden Markram has earned himself an unusual and unwanted piece of history by being dismissed twice without scoring on his debut in English county cricket.
Markram has made a record-breaking start to his Test career but made a horror beginning to his time in the County Championship, picking up a pair on the opening day of his first match for Durham.
Twenty-one wickets fell on the opening day at Chester-le-Street, with Kent's New Zealand quick Matt Henry taking 5-28 as the hosts were bowled out for just 91 in their first innings.
WICKET! Markram lbw b Henry 0. The @BLACKCAPS star traps the South African Test opener in his second over. Live scorecard & in-game highlights: https://t.co/0dsgOP3ayK pic.twitter.com/Y1FhD0p312%E2%80%94 Kent Cricket 🏏 (@kentcricket) April 20, 2018
Henry dismissed Markram lbw from the opener's 10th ball and, after Kent managed just 169 in reply, the Kiwi removed Markram again before stumps, caught at mid-wicket for another duck.
Cricket statistician Andrew Samson confirmed Markram is the first batsman to suffer the unusual fate of securing a pair on the opening day of his county debut.
Aiden Markram is the first player to make a pair on his first day of County Championship cricket.%E2%80%94 Andrew Samson (@AWSStats) April 20, 2018
"It's never nice as an opening batsman to go out there twice on the first day," Henry said. "He's a massive player for Durham and it was good to get him early.
"He's a very talented player so we knew that it was an important wicket to get, obviously to get someone like that tonight (again) was good.
"It was pretty crazy. Cricket doesn't usually go like that (21 wickets in a day).
"There's a little bit of shape out there, but we experienced low bounce more than anything."
WICKET! Third ball duck and a pair on debut for Aiden Markram as Matt Henry claims his 6th wicket of the match & 13th of the season! Durham 0-1 & trail by 78.Live scorecard & highlights: https://t.co/0dsgOP3ayK pic.twitter.com/NICBu7uChC%E2%80%94 Kent Cricket 🏏 (@kentcricket) April 20, 2018
Markram is the second South African opener in as many years to fail twice on debut for Durham; countryman Stephen Cook managed scores of just 2 and 0 on debut against Notts almost 12 months ago to the day.
It's an inauspicious start for Markram, but a rare failure for him after a golden six-month period that has seen him establish himself as an international player of enormous potential.
The 23-year-old has scored four hundreds in 10 Tests since his debut last September, including two in South Africa's recent series win against Australia, and became the second-fastest South African to 1000 runs in Test cricket.
The man who tops that list, former Proteas skipper Graeme Smith, believes the right-hander is a captain in waiting.
"I think definitely a future captain," Smith told cricket.com.au last month.
"Maybe when (Faf) du Plessis, I assume he'll walk away from some formats after 2019 World Cup, that might be the right time for Markram to step in."