History of Test cricket in India. And the unparalleled legacy of over 90 years!

India made its debut as the 6th test-playing nation. Getting the reputation to play test cricket in 1932 under the captaincy of CK NAYUDU.

Early days of Indian Test Team

The 1st victory in a test match of team India was earned in the year 1952. Nearly a 20-year game of fierce victory has come against England at the MA Chidambaram Stadium which is located in Chennai, TN, India. The first period from the year 1933 to 1975 was similar to the start/beginning for most teams as India struggled to find its feet.

The victories were few. There were still several periods of nullity, the maximum number of consecutive losses was very limited to three. The spinners ruled during this great period. However, gained strength with the emergence of Sunil Gavaskar, 1st Indian batsman to make the 10000 run mark in test cricket. Kapil dev, the youngster picked 100 wickets and scored 1000 runs very early in his Test career. Gundappa Viswanath, the strong batting lineup raises the bar against other teams in their later periods.

The days of fighting spirit

The Indian team of the 70s and 80s laid the deep base to the cricketing pillars of this generation. There is no doubt that without those men, there is no cricket in India. The horrors of the West Indies attack told millions of times but the stories won’t tire us in any way. The iconic photos of Sunil Gavaskar with his skull cap making hundreds in foreign land still hold a strong place in our hearts.

The legendary Spin quadrent in test cricket

• Srinivas Venkat Raghavan
• Erapalli Prasanna
• Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
• Bishan Singh Bedi

These 4 spinners picking 853 wickets in 231 matches made 6 home series wins in 1972-1982. India ranked number 1 from April 1973 to June 1974. In the late 1980s, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, and K Srikanth of Tamil Nadu laid a fantastic groundwork for the great test team. You can read more about them in en ESPN Cricinfo article.

The days of dominance with heartbreaks

During the 2000s aggressive captaincy of Sourav Ganguly defeated Australia 2-1 in the home. The famous 2001 ‘final frontier’ series is still regarded as the best test series held in India. Rahul Dravid, “the wall” and VVSLaxman(Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman) played memorable knocks in Kolkata Eden garden from 254/4 to 589/4. The duo played the entire day set and target of 384 on day 5. Which after being backed up by Harbajan’s spin web India went on to win the match by 171 runs. Harbajan took the famous Hartrick in that unmatched spell.

Thala Dhoni Days

As the game progresses, the captain looks at the game contrarily, standing on the safer side first, the view altered to win the match and get the results. Dhoni 21 wins in 30 matches resulting in 45%, Kohli 22 in 29 home series wins development of 59% in which the last 14 were undefeated. Unlike his predecessors, Dhoni had to manage an aging team in his early days. Even though he had the experience of Dravid, Sachin, Viru, VVS, and many more, it was clear that they were past their prime.

Often times Dhoni was blamed that he is blocking the young players by playing them. But the criticism doesn’t bother Dhoni as he went on to make India the number one 1 ranked team. But the purple patch did not last as long as everyone desired to, soon after the exit of once unmatched top 6. Dhoni now had a different problem in his hand. Dhoni constructed the team around bowlers and made India a very strong side to beat in Home conditions.

Rise of King Kohli

As everyone keep focusing on India’s fading batsmen list, Kohli single-handedly glued the lower order and top order. After Dhoni’s exit from Tests, King ruled everywhere he went. It all started in the famous twin hundred Adelaide 2014 match. Where he and Murali Vijay almost pulled off the impossible. But it was clear that it wasn’t the batting that let them down nor the spin bowling. As arguably India had the best top 5 in the world, inform of Kohli, Pujara, Vijay, Rahane, and Dhawan. The spin bowling was taken care of by the all-time best spin duo of R Ashwin and R Jadeja.

India’s new-found Pace wheelhouse

As famously Harsha Bhogle would tell, Kohli wanted some raw aggressive at your face, pacers. Later part 2017 and since India built the reputation of being the best Pace bowling nation. All these thanks to the pacemen of :

• I Sharma
• M Shami
• J Bumrah
• U Yadav
• B Kumar
• M Siraj
• S Thakur

The Spin sensations

Most of the team India win brought up by spin bowlers Anil humble 350, Harbhajan Singh 265, Ojha 101 wickets, and then Aswin 300 wickets at home, these are the great statistics that show that the Indian team is dominant in spin bowling. Anil Kumble and Ravichandran Ashwin are the only 2 Indian bowlers to pick 300 or more wickets for India at home. India played test cricket from a seed grown as a tree to untouchable height. It’s all because of the admiration of good cricket the players play and knowledgeable people in India having compassion, favoring, honoring the game.

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