The Indian cricket team is a national cricket team representing India. It made its Test debut on June 25, 1932 at Lord's, England. In 1983, they won the Cricket World Cup and reached the final in 2003.

Some of its current members are Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly (captain), Rahul Dravid (vice-captain), Virender Sehwag, V. V. S. Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Mohammad Kaif, Mahendra singh Dhoni,Irfan Pathan,Zaheer Khan,Ashish Nehra,Ajit Agarkar, Lakshmipathy Balaji , and Dinesh Mongia. Famous former players include Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Mohammed Azharuddin.

History of Indian international cricket

Some of the earliest heroes of Indian cricket were CK Nayudu, Lala Amarnath, Mohammad Nissar. India's first series as an independent country was in 1948 against Australia at Brisbane. Australia were led by Don Bradman while India was led by Lala Amarnath. India's first ever test victory came against England at Madras in 1952. India's first series victory was against Pakistan the same year.

Some of India's star cricketers of the 1950s and 1960s were Vinoo Mankad, Hemu Adhikari, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Chandu Borde and Subhash Gupte. India's first overseas series victory came against New Zealand in 1968.

Most of the 1970s was dominated by India's spin quartet of Bishen Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, BS Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkatraghavan. This period also saw the emergence of two of India's best ever batsmen, Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath. This bunch of players was responsible for the back-to-back series wins in West Indies and England in 1971. Kapil Dev emerged as a quality all-rounder towards the end of this decade.

During the 1980s, other players like Mohammed Azharuddin, Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar , Krish Srikkanth , Madan Lal and Maninder Singh emerged. India won the Cricket World Cup in 1983 defeating West Indies in the final. In 1985, India won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia. The test series victory in 1986 in England remains, to date, India's last test series win outside the subcontinent. Sunil Gavaskar became the first batsman to cross 10,000 runs in test cricket and went on to register a record 34 centuries, equalled recently by Sachin Tendulkar.Their recent test and one day international series victory against Pakistan remains the high point this year.

The emergence of Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble in 1989 and 1990 gave further proof of Indian cricket's depth and the Indian side went from strength to strength during the 1990s, though mostly at home.

In 1999, Anil Kumble became the second bowler to take all ten wickets in a Test match innings when he took 10 for 74 against Pakistan at New Delhi. Sachin Tendulkar continued to set new records while Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, Javagal Srinath made their mark in international cricket during this decade. India reached the final of the 2003 Cricket World Cup played in South Africa, but lost to Australia.

Though there has always been no dearth of talent in the Indian team, and many Indian cricketers have been acknowledged and respected the world over, the Indians have had trouble performing well overseas. But the current Indian team seems to have realized the strength within them and, under the guidance of coach John Wright, jelled well into a team. As a sample of their newly acquired confidence, they drew a test series with Australia in Australia, which is usually considered a very tough tour.

See also

• Border-Gavaskar Trophy
• List of cricketers

External links

• Indian Cricket