India National Cricket Team

India National Cricket Team:

Team India
Nickname Men in Blue
Association BCCI
Test Captain Shubman Gill
ODI Captain Rohit Sharma
T20I Captain Suryakumar Yadav
Head coach Gautam Gambhir
First Test vs England at Lord’s, 25–28 June 1932
First ODI vs England at Headingley, 13 July 1974
First T20I vs South Africa at Wanderers Stadium, 1 December 2006
World Cup wins 2 (1983, 2011)
T20 World Cup wins 2 (2007, 2024)

The India men’s national cricket team represents India in international cricket. The team is governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and is a full member nation of the International Cricket Council (ICC). As a result, India have the status to play in all the three formats of the game.

India National Cricket Team – Brief history:

  • Cricket was introduced in India for the first time in early 1700s by the British. The first cricket match in India was played in 1721.
  • In 1848, the first cricket club was established by Indians. The Parsi community of Mumbai established the Oriental Cricket Club.
  • In early 1900s, some Indians such as Ranjitsinhji and Duleepsinhji represented England cricket teams. Two of India’s premier domestic tournaments – Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy – are named after them.
  • The ICC invited India to become a member in 1926. Six years later, India played their first Test against England at Lord’s under the captaincy of C.K. Nayudu. India suffered a 158-run loss in that match. In 1933, India hosted their first Test series against England.
  • India did not play any Test matches in early 1940s due to the second world war.
  • After Independence, India’s first Test series was against Don Bradman’s Australia in late 1947.
  • India won their first Test match in Madras in 1952 with England as the opponents. In the same year, India also won their first Test series, which was against Pakistan.
  • In 1967-68, India won their first Test series away from home, against New Zealand.
  • India played their first ODI match in 1974 under the captaincy of Ajit Wadekar.
  • After failing to qualify for the knockout stage in the first two editions of the World Cup, India went on to win the tournament in 1983 by beating two-time defending champions West Indies.
  • While India struggled to do well consistently in late 80 and 90s, they have been a force to reckon with this century. India have been one of the most dominant teams across formats in the last two decades or so.
Kapil Dev with 1983 World Cup (Credits: X)

India National Cricket Team – Governing body:

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) looks after the Indian cricket team as well as the domestic teams. The board came into operation way back in 1929. It is one of the wealthiest sporting organizations in the world. Not only does it look after the team but also manages the Indian team’s sponsorships, its future tours and team selection.

India National Cricket Team – Captains:

Here is a list of captains who have led India in all the three formats of the game so far:

Test captains:

C. K. Nayudu
Maharajkumar of Vizianagram
Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi
Lala Amarnath
Vijay Hazare
Vinoo Mankad
Ghulam Ahmed
Polly Umrigar
Hemu Adhikari
Datta Gaekwad
Pankaj Roy
Gulabrai Ramchand
Nari Contractor
Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi
Chandu Borde
Ajit Wadekar
Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan
Sunil Gavaskar
Bishan Singh Bedi
Gundappa Viswanath
Kapil Dev
Dilip Vengsarkar
Ravi Shastri
Krishnamachari Srikkanth
Mohammad Azharuddin
Sachin Tendulkar
Sourav Ganguly
Rahul Dravid
Virender Sehwag
Anil Kumble
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Virat Kohli
Ajinkya Rahane
KL Rahul
Rohit Sharma
Jasprit Bumrah
Shubman Gill

ODI captains:

Ajit Wadekar
Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan
Bishan Singh Bedi
Syed Gaudwilkar
Gundappa Viswanath
Kapil Dev
Syed Kirmani
Mohinder Amarnath
Ravi Shastri
Dilip Vengsarkar
Krishnamachari Srikkanth
Mohammad Azharuddin
Sachin Tendulkar
Ajay Jadeja
Sourav Ganguly
Rahul Dravid
Anil Kumble
Virender Sehwag
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Suresh Raina
Gautam Gambhir
Virat Kohli
Ajinkya Rahane
Rohit Sharma
Shikhar Dhawan
KL Rahul
Hardik Pandya

T20I captains:

Virender Sehwag
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Suresh Raina
Ajinkya Rahane
Virat Kohli
Rohit Sharma
Shikhar Dhawan
Rishabh Pant
Hardik Pandya
KL Rahul
Jasprit Bumrah
Ruturaj Gaikwad
Suryakumar Yadav
Shubman Gill

India National Cricket Team – Current players:

Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Rishabh Pant, Suryakumar Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, Rinku Singh, Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Rajat Patidar, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Sharma, Akash Deep, Varun Chakaravarthy, Harshit Rana.

India National Cricket Team – Coaching staff:

Position Name
Head coach Gautam Gambhir
Assistant coach Ryan Ten Doeschate
Bowling coach Morné Morkel
Fielding coach T Dilip
Strength and Conditioning coach Adrian le Roux

India National Cricket Team – Jersey:

Team colours:

Test match:

The first-class teams wear white jersey as the norm across the world. In addition to their whites, Indian fielders wear a dark blue cap or a white wide-brimmed sun hat, with the BCCI logo in the center. Helmets are also dark blue.

Limited Overs:

Unlike Tests, India national cricket team wear the blue-colored jersey in T20Is and ODIs.  Dream11 is currently the official team sponsor. Even since cricket welcomed colored jerseys, Team India has chosen blue as their primary color. The secondary color has changed over the years while yellow and orange have been dominant.

India National Cricket Team – Tournament history:

ODI World Cup:

India have played in all the editions of the World Cup so far. They have won the tournament twice so far in addition to finishing runners-up on two different occasions.

Year Round
1975 Group Stage
1979 Group Stage
1983 Champions
1987 Semi Finals
1992 Group Stage
1996 Semi Finals
1999 Super Six
2003 Runners Up
2007 Group Stage
2011 Champions
2015 Semi Finals
2019 Semi Finals
2023 Runners Up

Champions Trophy:

India have also played in each edition of the Champions Trophy so far and are the most successful side in the history of the competition. The Men in Blue have won the tournament thrice so far.

Year Round
1998 Semi Finals
2000 Runners Up
2002 Champions
2004 Group Stage
2006 Group Stage
2009 Group Stage
2013 Champions
2017 Runners Up
2025 Champions

Asia Cup:

India are also the most successful side in the Asia Cup history. They have won the continental championship eight times.

Year Round
1984 Champions
1986 Boycotted
1988 Champions
1990–91 Champions
1995 Champions
1997 Runners Up
2000 First Round
2004 Runners Up
2008 Runners Up
2010 Champions
2012 First Round
2014 First Round
2016 Champions
2018 Champions
2022 Super Fours
2023 Champions

T20 World Cup:

Along with West Indies and England, India are the only team to win the T20 World Cup twice.

Year Round
2007 Champions
2009 Super 8s
2010 Super 8s
2012 Super 8s
2014 Runners-up
2016 Semi-finals
2021 Super 12s
2022 Semi-finals
2024 Champions

World Test Championship:

India are yet to win the WTC. They played the final of the first two editions but finished runners-up on both occasions.

Season Position
2019–2021 Runners Up
2021–2023 Runners Up
2023–2025 Third Place

India National Cricket Team – Stadium list:

The cricket-obsessed nation boasts of several world-famous cricket stadiums. Mostly the state associations look after the ground.  The Bombay Gymkhana was the first ground in India to host a full-scale cricket match featuring an Indian cricket team. The game was between the Parsis and Europeans wayback in 1877.

The Bombay Gymkhana also hosted the first-ever Test match in India in 1933 and it was the only Test it ever hosted. The second and third Tests in the 1933 series were hosted at Eden Gardens in Kolkata and Chepauk in Madras (now Chennai).

After Independence, Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla hosted the first Test in India when the host draw against the West Indies in 1948, just a year after the independence. So far, as many as 21 stadiums in India have hosted at least one Test. In recent times, the BCCI has made a whole-hearted effort to take the game to the unchartered territories as they have set up stadiums in places like Indore, Chandigarh Mohali, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Rajkot, Ranchi, Pune, Dharamshala and Nagpur.

So far, Kolkata’s Eden Gardens, which is the second-biggest cricket stadium in the world, has hosted the most number of Tests in India. The stadium was established in 1864 and has witnessed several iconic and controversial games.  Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi is another historical stadium which was established in 1883. This was the very stadium where Anil Kumble had taken a record all ten wickets in an innings against Pakistan.

Here is a list showing the list of stadiums which have hosted at least one international game so far:

Stadium Place First match
Eden Gardens Kolkata 1934
Feroz Shah Kotla Ground Delhi 1948
M. A. Chidambaram Stadium Chepauk, Chennai 1934
Wankhede Stadium Mumbai 1975
M. Chinnaswamy Stadium Bangalore 1974
Green Park Kanpur 1952
Brabourne Stadium Mumbai 1948
Punjab Cricket Association Stadium Mohali 1994
Sardar Patel Stadium (Gujarat) Motera, Ahmedabad 1983
Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium Nagpur 2008
Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium Hyderabad 2010
Barabati Stadium Cuttack 1987
Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium Rajkot 2016
Holkar Stadium Indore 2016
ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium Visakhapatnam 2016
Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium Pune 2017
JSCA International Stadium Complex Ranchi 2017
Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium Dharamshala 2017
Sawai Mansingh Stadium Jaipur 1987
Greater Noida Sports Complex Ground Greater Noida 2017
Dr. Bhupen Hazarika Cricket Stadium Guwahati 2017
Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Dehradun Dehradun 2018
Greenfield International Stadium Thiruvananthapuram 2017
Ekana International Cricket Stadium Lucknow 2018
Lalabhai Contractor Stadium Surat 2019
Veer Narayan Singh Stadium Raipur 2023
Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Stadium Gwalior 2024
Baroda Cricket Association Stadium Vadodara 2024

Here is another list showing the stadiums which used to host international games:

Stadium Place First used
Nehru Stadium Chennai 1956
Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground Nagpur 1969
Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium Hyderabad 1955
Bombay Gymkhana Mumbai 1933
Gandhi Stadium Jalandhar 1983
K. D. Singh Babu Stadium Lucknow 1994
Sector 16 Stadium Chandigarh 1990
University Ground Lucknow 1952
Barkatullah Khan Stadium Jodhpur 2000
Captain Roop Singh Stadium Gwalior 1988
Gandhi Sports Complex Ground Amritsar 1982
Indira Gandhi Stadium Vijayawada 2002
Indira Priyadarshini Stadium Visakhapatnam 1988
Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium New Delhi 1984
Keenan Stadium Jamshedpur 1983
Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Ground Rajkot 1989
Moin-ul-Haq Stadium Patna 1993
Moti Bagh Stadium Vadodara 1983
Nahar Singh Stadium Faridabad 1988
Nehru Stadium Guwahati 1983
Nehru Stadium Indore 1983
Nehru Stadium Kochi 1998
Nehru Stadium Margao 1989
Nehru Stadium Pune 1984
IPCL Sports Complex Ground Vadodara 1994
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad Ahmedabad 1981
Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium Srinagar 1983
University Stadium Thiruvananthapuram 1984