The Indian National cricket team, made its Test cricket debut in 1932 and has since advanced to be among the top four test teams in the (ICC rankings) in each of 2005 to 2008.ICC website: 2005 2006 2007 2008 The team won the ODI Cricket World Cup in 1983 and 2011. In other major International victories, Team India won the Twenty20 World Cup in 2007,2024, 2026 and ICC Champions Trophy in 2002,2013 and 2025.
Cricket was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by European merchant sailors in the 18th century, and the first cricket club was established in 1792. India's national cricket team did not play its first Test match until 25 June 1932 at Lord's, becoming the sixth team to be granted Test cricket status. From 1932 India had to wait until 1952, almost 20 years for its first Test victory. In its first fifty years of international cricket, India was one of the weaker teams, winning only 35 of the first 196 Test matches it played. The team, however, gained strength in the 1970s with the emergence of players such as Gavaskar, Viswanath, Kapil Dev, and the Indian spin quartet.
India won its first World Cup in 1983, under the captaincy of Kapil Dev. The '80s and '90s also saw the debut of Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman and Kumble, considered to be among the greatest Indian players.
Ganguly's captaincy is considered to be the turning point of Indian cricket as it saw great success and became one of the dominant side of the sport, followed by the superb captaincy of MS Dhoni under whom India won its second World Cup in 2011, the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007, and Champions Trophy in 2013. Currently, Rohit Sharma is the captain of 2 formats – Test, ODI and Suryakumar Yadav is Captain of T20Iteams.
History Test status (1932–1970)
A few Indians played as members of the English cricket team while India was under British rule, including Ranjitsinhji and KS Duleepsinhji. Maharaja of patiala is the man behind the golden history of Indian Cricket. His cricket team – Patiala XI was among the best of India. He was a great patron of sports. He sponsored various tours of India for cricket and various tournaments using his own money. He was captain of the Indian cricket team that visited England in 1911, and played in 27 first-class cricket matches between 1915 and 1937. For the season of 1926/27, he played as a member of Marylebone Cricket Club. He donated the Ranji Trophy in honour of Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, Jam Sahib of Nawanagar. He was selected as the captain of India on its first Test tour of England in 1932, but dropped out for reasons of health two weeks before departure and the Maharaja of Porbandar took over. All this way India becoming the sixth team to be granted test cricket status. India made its debut as a Test-cricket-playing-nation in England in 1932 led by CK Nayudu, well before Indian independence. The team performed well, with Mohammad Nissar taking 5-93 and 1–42 in the match against England. The match was given test status despite being only 3 days in length. England, batting first, scored 258 with Nissar cleaning up the openers and tailenders. However the Indian team failed to capitalize on their bowling performance, all out for 189 with CK Nayudu the top scorer with 40 runs. England went on to score 275 and set India a target of 346, which always seemed out of the visitor's grasp. India were all out for 187 and lost by 158 runs.
The team's first series as an independent country was in 1947-1948 against Australia at Brisbane. Australia were led by Sir Don Bradman while India was led by Lala Amarnath. The Australians returned home, winning the 5 Test series with the score 4–0. The first Test match in the series was held between 28 November 1947 to 4 December 1947, with Australia emerging victorious.
India's first ever Test victory came against England at Madras in 1952. India's first series victory was against Pakistan later the same year. In 1954, India drew a 5-Test series with Pakistan 0–0, the batting strength from India had come from Polly Umrigar and Vijay Manjrekar while the prime bowler was Subhash Gupte with 21 wickets in the series. India's first series against New Zealand in 1956 created a comprehensive series victory for India, winning the 5-Test series 2–0. MH Mankad was excellent in his batting, averaging 105.2 in the series while scoring 526 runs. Once again, S.M. Gupte held India's bowling together, with 34 wickets. The remainder of the 1950s did not show as good results as the start: India lost a 3-Test series to Australia (2–0), lost a 5-Test series against the West Indies (3–0),
The team's performances again began to improve in the 1960s, starting with their first series win over England in 1961–62. During this time, India's strong record at home started to develop, in which the team won a series against New Zealand in 1965-66 and drew series against Pakistan, Australia and England. In 1967–68, India won their first series outside the subcontinent against New Zealand.
One-day cricket and World Cup success (1970–1985) Sunil Gavaskar made his debut for India in the West Indies in 1970-71 and immediately made an impact, scoring a total of 774 runs for the series and helping India to a 1–0 series win, their first ever win over the West Indies. Together with established players like Bishen Bedi, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, Erapalli Prasanna and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Gavaskar formed the nucleus of arguably India's strongest Test team up to that point in time. India's win over the West Indies was followed by home and away wins over England in 1971 and 1972–73. Also, during this time, Sunil Gavaskar is the first Indian to ever score a 200 in a test match. All of the teams feared when Sunil Gavaskar was at the crease, whether it was ODI matches, or Test Matches. India won 1983 Cricket World Cup, however, the West Indies were targeting Sunil Gavaskar and got him out
During the 1980s, other players like Mohammed Azharuddin, Ravi Shastri, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, Sanjay Manjrekar, Krish Srikkanth and Maninder Singh emerged. India won the Cricket World Cup in 1983, defeating West Indies in an exciting final.
Late 20th century (1985–2000) In 1985, India won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia. The Test series victory in 1986 in England remained, for nearly 19 years, the last Test series win outside subcontinent. Sunil Gavaskar became the first batsman to accumulate 10,000 runs in Test cricket, and went on to register a record 34 centuries, surpassed only recently by Sachin Tendulkar. Kapil Dev, a genuine all-rounder, became the highest wicket taker in Test cricket, surpassing Richard Hadlee to take a total of 434 wickets, a record which has since been broken by Courtney Walsh, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan and has also been surpassed by fellow Indian Anil Kumble. The emergence of Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble in 1989 and 1990 was to herald an era of Indian cricket that was dominated by stars and individual brilliance. Sachin Tendulkar became arguably the best batsman in the world, along with Brian Lara of the West Indies and in 1998, Sir Donald Bradman himself remarked that Tendulkar batting style was similar to his. Mohammed Azharuddin, who captained India for most of the 1990s, proved a captain whose main strength, if not his motivational skills, was an ability to stay cool under pressure. Azharuddin's artistic batting, however, declined during the later years of his captaincy, and his best innings during this time were mostly when playing at home. The Hyderabadi stylist's career ended after 99 Tests when he was banned for life after being implicated in the match-fixing scandal. Under his captaincy, the Indian team became virtually unbeatable at home, with big wins against teams such as England, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Australia. Their performances abroad, however, left a lot to be desired.
Towards the end of 1999, the Indian team was in flux. Although they had performed well in the 1999 World Cup, the winter was marked by a disastrous tour to Australia which exposed the Indian team's weaknesses when playing abroad, marked with a loss of form of most of the batsmen, except Tendulkar and the newly emerged VVS Laxman. After Tendulkar quit captaincy and Azharuddin was banned for match-fixing, Sourav Ganguly took over as captain, and the New Zealander John Wright became coach.
Turn of the millennium (2000–2007) Sourav Ganguly's captaincy heralded a new era in Indian cricket. It began in the famous series against Australia in 2001, when Steve Waugh's strong team was defeated 2–1 in a Test series after having taken a 1–0 lead at Mumbai. The series is best known for a remarkable turnaround by the Indian team in the Kolkata Test, when VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Harbhajan Singh's performance took India to victory after they had followed on. This series marked a turning point in the Indian team's fortunes, and provided the team with the boost they dearly needed. This was followed by stellar performances by the team when playing abroad, with Test victories coming in Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, West Indies, England, Australia, and a famous series victory against arch-rivals Pakistan in 2004. The series in England in 2002 is billed as Rahul Dravid's series, as he became the top scorer for the Indians, with centuries coming at Trent Bridge in Nottingham, Headingley in Leeds and a famous 217 at the Oval in London. This was followed by a sensational win in Australia at Adelaide in 2003, where Dravid, VVS Laxman and Ajit Agarkar scripted a come-from-behind victory after the team had conceded 556 runs in the first innings. The series win in Pakistan that followed was marked by Virender Sehwag becoming the first Indian to score a triple century in Test cricket. Along with Sehwag, players like Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif emerged, making the Indian batting order one of the strongest in the world in both forms of the game*. Their performances helped reduced India's dependence on their top guns in one-day cricket, and a 7-batsman policy contributed to India's successes in the limited-overs game, culminating in their reaching the final of the 2003 Cricket World Cup. In the bowling department, India unearthed a plethora of fast-bowling talent, with Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, and later Irfan Pathan and L Balaji leading the pack. The veteran Anil Kumble became the highest wicket-taker for India after surpassing Kapil Dev, and also passed the 500-mark in March 2006. His bowling performances abroad improved considerably, and he played a major part in India's overseas performances in England, Australia and Pakistan. Harbhajan Singh also provided him great company in the spin department, and at home the two bowling in tandem became a familiar sight.
Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag were selected to play for the ICC World XI in the 2005 "SuperTest" against Australia.
In 2005, Indian cricket was again shrouded in controversy. After a somewhat slow season marked by a dip in team performance following the famous Pakistan series ended, the coaching job passed from John Wright to the Australian Greg Chappell. Saurav Ganguly, whose batting form had taken a beating in that year, was involved in a spat with Chappell over whether he should be continuing as captain to reduce pressure on him. This was followed by Ganguly being dropped from the team and Rahul Dravid taking over as captain. While Tendulkar, Sehwag and Dravid formed the mainstay of the Indian batting, the coming of age of players like Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif led to the emergence of younger stars like Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni.