India’s Five Greatest Test Players Before and After Independence

Jan 9, 2019 at 4:03 PM

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India’s Five Greatest Test Players Before and After Independence

Over the years, India has produced some of the greatest cricketers the world has ever seen. A grand total of 289 players, spread over 85 years and 515 Test matches shows how tough it is to pick only players from the pre and post-independence era.

While there is absolutely no denying that it is exciting and at the same time a humbling experience, it is also a bit painful to leave the likes of Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan from the players.

These were some of the players we grew up watching while the likes of Kapil Dev, Gundappa Vishwanath, Bishan Singh Bedi have their own legacies and would definitely be the first pick in any Test team.

However, since we were picking up only five players from a pool of world-class Indian players, we have finally made the list after a lot of brainstorming.

5. Vijay Hazare:

Credits: PA

The first thing that comes to mind when the legendary Vijay Hazare is mentioned is his performance during India’s tour of England in 1946. With the likes of Denis Compton and Sir Leonard Hutton in England’s ranks, Hazare famously topped the run-scoring chart in the three-match series, amassing 245 runs at an average of 46 with the help of one century and a half-century.

Hazare made his debut in 1933 and retired from Test cricket in 1951, playing mere 10 Tests and scoring 859 runs with an average of almost 48. His highest score was 154, as he scored three centuries and as many half-centuries. And while his record in international cricket was exceptional at that time, first-class cricket was his real forte.

In all first-class cricket, he made over 13,000 runs at an impressive average of 71, which is still the second-best behind Don Bradman’s 95.14 and took 65 wickets.

4. Vinoo Mankad

Credits: PA

One of the truly great all-rounders of all time, Mankad was a key member of the national team in the late 1940s and much of the 1950s. Although he made his debut a year before independence, his finest performances came after it.

His heroics at Lord’s in 1952 which unfortunately came in a losing cause has become a part of the cricketing folklore. He had scored 72 and 184 in addition to picking up five wickets in the match which India lost by eight wickets.

Famously known for his record 413 runs partnership with Pankaj Roy for the first wicket against New Zealand in 1955, Mankad was key to India’s first-ever Test win over England at Madras in 1952. On a wicket which gave him a little assistance, he took eight for 55 and four for 53.

In Tests, he scored 2109 runs with an average of 31.47 and took 162 wickets at 32.31. He made five centuries and twice took eight wickets in an innings. His first-class record is even more impressive where he had scored 11,480 runs with an average of 34.78 and took 774 wickets at 24.60.

3. Anil Kumble:

Credits: AFP

If Sachin Tendulkar lived up to the expectations with the bat, Anil Kumble always exceeded it with the ball. Who would have thought that a player who began his career as a medium-pacer will go down in history as one of the greatest leg-spinners of all time?

With a staggering 619 scalps, he is India’s highest Test wicket-taker and is third on the all-time list, only behind Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Shane Warne (708).

His phenomenal 10-wicket haul in Pakistan’s second innings in the Kotla Test in 1999, made him only the second man after England’s Jim Laker to have achieved that feat, which is still fresh in every cricket’s fans memory.

He also has a century to his name which came at The Oval during India’s historic series win in England in 2007. The Karnataka star is regarded by many as India’s greatest Test match-winner for his integral roles in the monumental wins in Headingley, Adelaide, Multan and Kingston, not to mention the several wins at home.

2. Sunil Gavaskar:

Credits: Getty

The legacy of the legendary Sunil Gavaskar began in the very first series he played. A staggering 774 runs came from a 21-year-old Gavaskar’s bat in four just Tests, as India registered its first Test match victory as well as the series victory against the mighty West Indies in the Caribbean.

Gavaskar was the first man to pass Don Bradman’s long-standing mark of 29 Test hundreds and breach the 10,000-run mark in the longest format of the game. He held the record for the highest number of Test centuries (34) before Sachin Tendulkar went past him in 2005.

The right-handed batsman played 125 Tests for India, scoring 10122 runs, and 3092 runs in 108 ODI appearances.

1. Sachin Tendulkar:

Credits: BCCI

“I see myself when I see Sachin batting”

This is what the legendary and arguably the greatest batsman of all time Don Bradman had to say about Sachin Tendulkar. One of the best players of all time, Tendulkar served the nation for over two decades, giving the millions umpteen occasions of forgetting their troubles and celebrate his exceptional feats before bowing out of the game with almost every major batting record to his name.

Over 15,000 Test runs, 100 international centuries and 18,000 runs in one-day cricket, Tendulkar’s statistics in the game is completely unbelievable and make him the best batsman of all time by a mile in terms of runs and centuries.

He arrived at the international stage as a baby-faced, curly-haired teenager and played the best bowlers with utmost ease in the early part of his career. His match-saving century at Old Trafford in 1990, which was only his second series, marked his arrival and he did not look back since then. He retired from cricket at his home ground – Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai in 2013.

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