Late update,as always. But here it is.
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Domestic cricket
Laxman made his first-class debut for Hyderabad against Punjab in the quarter-final match of 1992–93 Ranji Trophy season. He scored a duck in the first innings and 17 in the second. He played only one match for Hyderabad in the next season, before getting dropped.
However, he was named in the South Zone squad for the 1994/95 Duleep Trophy in the back of his impressive outings for India Under-19s, but he failed to score big in the tournament. In the following Ranji Trophy season, Laxman notched up 532 runs from five matches at an average of 76 scoring two centuries. In the semi-final of the Duleep Trophy of 1995/96 season against West Zone, Laxman scored 47 in the first innings and a spectacular 121 in the second innings, sharing a 199-run partnership with skipper Rahul Dravid.
He had another brilliant Ranji season the next year, as he piled 775 runs in just 11 innings at an average of 86 with 3 centuries and a best of 203* that came against Karnataka in the semi-final, which Hyderabad eventually lost. He was picked to play for Rest of India against Karnataka in Irani Cup and also in the Board President's XI squad against the touring Australian team. He played only three matches in 1996/97 Ranji season, where he scored three half-centuries, before getting picked for the Indian Test team against South Africa.
Early international career (1996–2000)
Laxman made his Test debut in 1996 against South Africa at Ahmedabad, scoring a fifty in the second innings of the match. In the second game at Kolkata, he scored 14 and 1. He played just one Test in the South African tour the following month and was unable to cement his place in a star-studded Indian middle order. Instead, he was asked to open the innings, starting in West Indies in 1997.
At Kingston, he scored 64 in his first innings as opener. However, he averaged only 28 in that series playing as an opener.But intermittently continued in this role for nearly three years, but without any consistent success. In 1998 at Calcutta, he scored 95 against Australia opening the innings with Navjot Sidhu who scored 97.
India went on to win the match by an innings and 219 runs. Though he was selected in the Test squad that toured New Zealand in 1998, he did not get to play a single game as Ajay Jadeja was preferred over Laxman to open the innings with Sidhu.
Laxman scored a duck on his ODI debut against Zimbabwe in the Pepsi Tri-Series in 1998. He had a horrible run in the ODIs in 1998 which resulted in him getting dropped from the ODI team for more than a year. Against Pakistan in 1999, he scored just 66 runs from two Tests, averaging a modest 16.
In the first match of the Asian Test Championship later that year, Laxman scored 67 against Pakistan, but failed to score consistently, before getting dropped from the Test team as well.
