The very first time this feat, a first-ball dismissal, had been accomplished, was more than a 100 years ago when Arthur Conningham of Australia had England's Archie MacLaren caught off the first ball of the 1894-95 Melbourne Test. Interestingly, Conningham was bowling his first ball in Test cricket.

Out of the 23 known instances of a batsman getting out to the first ball of a Test, India holds the lion's share. Indian batsmen suffered this fate on no less than six occasions. England come next with four such instances, followed by South Africa and West Indies (three each), Australia and Bangladesh (twice each).

New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have one such instance each. From the bowling side's perspective, West Indian bowlers have accounted for most first ball match dismissals- six, followed by Australia (four), England, India and New Zealand (thrice each), South Africa and Pakistan (two each).

Hannan Sarkar was infact getting out in this peculiar fashion for the second time in his career. In December 2002 also he was dismissed first ball - against the same opponent and off the same bowler. Only ground and mode of dismissal were different. Sarkar thus became only the second batsman in Test chronicles to suffer this ignominy on more than one occasion.

But it is India's Sunil Gavaskar, who still is the only batsman to have the honour of getting out to the first ball of a Test match, thrice.

Pedro Collins, on the other hand, now joins New Zealand's Richard Hadlee, England's Geoff Arnold and India's Kapil Dev, to have inflicted dismissals off the very first ball of the match on more than one occasion.

Here-under given is a list of batsmen who were dismissed off the first ball of a Test match:

Batsman	Countries	Venue	Season	Bowler
AC MacLaren	Eng v Aus	Melbourne	1894-95	A Conningham
TW Hayward	Eng v SA	Oval	1907	AEE Vogler
W Bardsley	Aus v Eng	Leeds	1926	MW Tate
H Sutcliffe	Eng v NZ	Christchurch	1932-33	FT Badcock
TS Worthington	Eng v Aus	Brisbane	1936-37	EL McCormick
CC Hunte	WI v Pak	Port-of-Spain	1957-58	Fazal Mahmood
EJ Barlow	SA v Aus	Durban	1966-67	GD McKenzie
RC Fredricks	WI v Ind	Port-of-Spain	1970-71	S Abid Ali
KR Stackpole	Aus v NZ	Auckland	1973-74	RJ Hadlee
SM Gavaskar	Ind v Eng	Birmingham	1974	GG Arnold
SS Naik	Ind v WI	Calcutta	1974-75	AME Roberts
JFM Morrison	NZ v Eng	Christchurch	1974-75	GG Arnold
Mohsin Khan	Pak v Ind	Jullundar	1983-84	Kapil Dev
SM Gavaskar	Ind v WI	Calcutta	1983-84	MD Marshall
SM Gavaskar	Ind v Pak	Jaipur	1986-87	Imran Khan
WV Raman	Ind v NZ	Napier	1989-90	RJ Hadlee
SJ Cook	SA v Ind	Durban	1992-93	Kapil Dev
G Kirsten	SA v WI	Cape Town	1998-99	CEL Ambrose
ST Jayasuriya	SL v Aus	Galle	1999-00	GD McGrath
LV Garrick	WI v SA	Kingston	2000-01	AA Donald
SS Das	Ind v WI	Bridgetown	2001-02	M Dillon
Hannan Sarkar	BD v WI	Dhaka	2002-03	PT Collins
Hannan Sarkar	BD v WI	Gros Islet	2003-04	PT Collins