Does a great debut mean a great player

[The_roc]

There is no correlation between the two.

You can find all kinds of examples great debut-great career, bad debut great career, bad debut bad career, great debut bad career and all other permutations once you introduce average careers, average debuts and so on

Graham Gooch started his test career with 0, 0, 6

 

[popepouri]

Atapattu

0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0

 

[Richard]

Atapattu also had many such comparable spells within his career, mind. Almost certainly the most bafflingly inconsistent batsman you'll ever see. Sheer quality when he got in; unbelievably vulnerable early on. And also there were some days when he just looked right from the start; some days you just knew he was never going to make a run.

BTW just in case anyone was unaware Gooch's debut came when he got caught on a sticky and someone (might've been either Dennis Lillee or Jeff Thomson, though it could've been Max Walker) commented that they thought he was going to be quite some player after he nicked one of the balls he faced first-up, because most would've missed it by a mile.