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The men who changed the face of Indian Cricket

The Indian team won the cricket world cup 2011. But actually speaking, it did not come as a big surprise to anyone. The Indian team was the hot favorites to win this Quadrennial event. But Indian cricket was not as rosy as we find it now. It took years to come to a time where Indian cricketers are considered one of the fiercest competitors.

There were some cricketers who contributed hugely in their own ways to raise the level of Indian cricket at some point of time or other.

In this article, we have tried to pick up those cricketers who have made such big contributions and put in a few words about each of them. The listing is done in chronological order.

K.S.Ranjitsinhji (The batsman who first showed that an Indian can play competitive cricket very well and after whom Ranji trophy has been named):

Ranjitsinhji was an Indian King and Test cricketer who played for the English cricket team. He also played first-class cricket for Cambridge University, and county cricket for Sussex. Ranji is widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time, Neville Cardus describing him as "the Midsummer night's dream of cricket". Unorthodox in technique and with fast reactions, he brought a new style to batting and revolutionized the game. Previously batsmen generally pushed forward; Ranji took advantage of the improving pitches of the time and relied on a back and across defensive stroke and played elegant strokes off the back foot in attack. He had a strong late cut and is noted for his popularization or invention of the leg glance. He scored 989 runs in 15 test matches @ 44.95 with 2 hundreds and 6 fifties. His top score being 175.

•  Colonel C.K. Nayudu (Lead the Indian team for its first ever test match and series ):

An outstanding solid batsman, Nayudu fondly known as CK was known for his ability as a hard hitter of the ball. He was the first cricketer to be honored with the Padma Bhushan.

India made its debut at Lord's under Col C K Nayudu. In its first Test tour of England with the Maharaja of Porbandar as captain and Ghanshyamsinhji of Limbdi as vice-captain. Two weeks before the trip, Porbandar dropped out on reasons of health and Limbi took over. It was just before the start of India's inaugural Test; Nayudu was appointed captain of the Indian team as Limbdi suffered a back injury that ruled him out of the Test. He scored 350 runs in 7 test matches @ 25.00 and took 9 wickets.

•  Vijay Hazare (Lead India to its first Test win):

Hazare was an Indian cricket player from the state of Maharashtra. He captained the Indian cricket team in 14 matches between 1951 and 1953. In India's 25th Test match, nearly 20 years after India achieved Test status, he led India to her first ever Test win (and the only victory under his captaincy) in 1951-52 against England at Madras, winning by an innings and eight runs in a match that began on the day that King George VI died.

Hazare's Test record is very respectable: he amassed 2,192 runs in 30 Test matches with a batting average of 47.65.

He took 20 test wickets and Donald Bradman's wicket three times.

First Indian to score a century in each innings of a Test match (116 and 145 on successive days against the Australian cricket team in Adelaide in 1947-48, which was the same team that became known as The Invincibles ).

He also became the first Indian player to score a century in three successive Test matches.

First Indian player to complete 1000 Test Runs.

•  Ajit Wadekar (The first captain to win overseas test series):

He became captain of Mumbai, and became Indian captain in 1971, leading a side that included Sunil Gavaskar, M. L. Jaisimha, Gundappa Viswanath, Abid Ali, Farokh Engineer, and the Indian spin quartet (Bishen Bedi, E.A.S. Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan). He was immediately successful, becoming the first Indian captain to achieve series victories on tours to the West Indies and in England, winning both tours 1-0 in 1971. His team won over 5 matches in the West Indies in early 1971, and then beat England over 3 matches. He led India to a third successive series victory, beating England cricket team 2-1 again in a 5-match series in 1972-3. He scored 2113 runs in 37 test matches @ 31.07 with 1 century.

•  Eknath Solkar (The man who underlined the importance of fielding):

Solkar was renowned for his excellent close fielding, and his catches helped India to victory against England at The Oval in 1971, the team's first Test win in England. His 53 catches in only 27 matches is the best ratio of any non keeper with 20 or more Tests. He is responsible for one of cricket's most celebrated quotes, directed at Geoffrey Boycott: "I will out you bloody."

•  The spin Quartrets ( Bishen Bedi, E.A.S. Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan ):

Between them, they played 231 Test matches taking 853 wickets. They were one of the most deadly combinations in world cricket; especially on the dusty sub continental pitches. The spin quartet was instrumental in producing many Indian Test victories. However, the four hardly played together in the same match - in fact, there was only one match in which all four of them were in the Starting XI. Due to team restrictions, often either Prasanna or Venkataraghavan were left out in order to accommodate the others. However, these four men contributed greatly for some of India's greatest triumphs, including Test series victories in the West Indies and England, as well as Test victories in Australia and New Zealand. In 2004, the Board of Control for Cricket in India conferred on them the CK Nayudu award, named after India's first Test captain.

•  Sunil Manohar Gavaskar (India's first batsman who showed the world how to play fast bowlers):

Before the era of Sunil Gavaskar, Indians were thought to be a team who couldn't play fast bowlers comfortably. He was regarded as one of the greatest opening batsmen in test match history, Gavaskar set world records during his career for the most runs and most centuries scored by any batsman. He held the record of 34 Test centuries for almost two decades before it was broken by Sachin Tendulkar in December 2005. Gavaskar was widely admired for his technique against fast bowling, with a particularly high average of 65.45 against the West Indies, who possessed a four-pronged fast bowling attack regarded as the most vicious in Test history.

He was the first batsman in test history to amass 10,000 runs. Also he held the record of scoring 34 centuries for a long time. He was also the scorer of the highest individual runs of 236* before it was broken by VVS Laxman.

•  Kapil Dev (First genuine quick and aggressive bowler for India):

If on one hand Indians were thought to be lousy players of fast bowling, the second talk in the town was that India didn't have a genuine quick bowler who can also show aggression if required. But when this man called Kapil Dev joined the Indian ranks, these talks became history as he could bowl fast, swing the ball, make the batsman hurry, make them duck and show some aggression on the field. This aggression seemed to rub on the others in the field as well. This man with his attitude led India to their first world cup victory in 1983. As a batsman, he was a natural striker of the ball who could hook and drive effectively. He is the only player in the history of cricket to have taken more than 400 wickets and scored more than 5,000 runs in test cricket, making him one of the greatest all-rounders to have played the game.

•  Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar (The best batsman in the modern world, the man who taught the word aggression while batting):

Sachin Tendulkar is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket.

He is the only male player to score a double century in the history of ODI cricket. In 2002, just 12 years into his career, Wisden ranked him the second greatest Test batsman of all time, behind Donald Bradman, and the second greatest one-day-international (ODI) batsman of all time, behind Viv Richards. In September 2007, the Australian leg spinner Shane Warne rated Tendulkar as the greatest player he has played with or against.

Tendulkar was an integral part of the 2011 Cricket World Cup winning Indian team at the later part of his career, his first such win in six World Cup appearances with India.

Tendulkar is the first and the only player in Test Cricket history to score fifty centuries, and the first to score fifty centuries in all international cricket combined; he now has 99 centuries in international cricket. On 17 October 2008, when he surpassed Brian Lara's record for the most runs scored in Test cricket, he also became the first batsman to score 12,000, 13,000 and 14,000 runs in that form of the game, having also been the third batsman and first Indian to pass 11,000 runs in Test cricket. He was also the first player to score 10,000 runs in one-day internationals, and also the first player to cross every subsequent 1000-run mark that has been crossed in ODI cricket history and 200 runs in a one-day international match.

In the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia, Tendulkar surpassed Australia's Allan Border to become the player to cross the 50-run mark the most number of times in Test cricket history, and also the second ever player to score 11 Test centuries against Australia, tying with Sir Jack Hobbs of England more than 70 years previously. Tendulkar passed 30,000 runs in international cricket on 20 November 2009. He also holds the world record for playing highest number of Test and ODI matches.

Tendulkar has been honoured with the Padma Vibhushan award, India's second highest civilian award, and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, India's highest sporting honor.

•  Sourav Ganguly (Became the first captain of India who believed in looking eye to eye with the opposition, the one who actually culminated the present Indian side):

This was the rise of a new team India under the aggressive captaincy of Sourav Ganguly. He was a captain of different mould. Previous captains would always have a thing or two to say about being aggressive, but this man let his aggression flow. Under him, the new team would not keep quiet when sledged, but would give back a thing or two to the opposition. The team learned of a new fighting spirit, which was absent in the previous teams. This team could snatch a win even from the face of defeat. The best examples can be the famous 2001 test against Australia, where VVS Laxman made a 281 to help India win after following on. Also, the win against England in the Natwest final chasing 325 was something of a phoenix.

The scene of the Bengal tiger waving his shirt in the air marked the rise of a new look Indian team. He scored 7212 runs in test and 11363 in ODIs with 16 tests and 22 ODI hundreds. He is India's one of the most successful Test Captain to date, winning 21 out of 49 test matches. An aggressive Captain, Ganguly is credited with having nurtured the careers of many young players who played under him.

•  Virender Sehwag (Took batting to another level with a fearless approach and one of the most destructive batsmen of modern cricket):

Sehwag is an aggressive right-handed opening batsman and a part-time right-arm off-spin bowler. He played his first One Day International in 1999 and joined the Indian Test cricket team in 2001. In April 2009, Sehwag became the only Indian to be honored as the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World for his performance in 2008, subsequently becoming the first player of any nationality to retain the award for 2009. Sehwag holds multiple records including the highest score made by an Indian in Test cricket (319), which was also the fastest triple century in the history of international cricket (reached 300 off only 278 balls) as well as the fastest 250 by any batsman (in 207 balls against Sri Lanka on 3 December 2009 at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai). Sehwag also holds the distinction of being one of four batsmen in the world to have ever surpassed 300 twice in Test cricket, and the only one to score two triple centuries and take a five-wicket innings haul. In March 2009, Sehwag smashed the fastest century ever scored by an Indian in ODI cricket, from 60 balls.

This aggressive approach from Sehwag has help India win many test matches which otherwise would have ended in a draw.

He has scored 7694 runs with 22 centuries in tests and 7760 runs with 14 centuries in ODIs.

•  Mahender Singh Dhoni (Considered to be the best captain to lead the Indian side, often regarded as "captain cool"):

After MSD took over the captaincy from Dravid, speculations were on the rise whether this young player from Ranchi will do any justice to this prestigious post. But he proved all critics wrong, and what a way to do that!! Winning two World cups for India.

Initially recognized as an extravagantly flamboyant and destructive batsman, Dhoni has come to be regarded as one of the coolest heads to captain the Indian ODI side. Under his captaincy, India won the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, CB Series of 2007–08, and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2008 and 2010 against Australia 2–0 and 2011 Cricket World Cup in which India beat Sri Lanka.

His Test, ODI record is best among all the Indian captains to date. He also captained Chennai Super Kings to victory in the recent IPL 2010 and in the Champions League. He is now captain of India in all three forms of the game and also led the team to their first ever bilateral ODI series wins in Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Under Dhoni's captaincy India became the first team after a gap of more than 20 Years to whitewash Australia in a Test series. Dhoni also led the Indian team to the number one position in ICC rankings in Test cricket for the first time.

Dhoni has also been the recipient of many awards including the ICC ODI Player of the Year award in 2008 and 2009 (the first Indian player to achieve this feat), the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award and the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour in 2009.

Dhoni was named as captain of Wisden's first-ever Dream Test XI Team in 2009 and has topped the list of world's top 10 earning cricketers compiled by Forbes. He was named as the captain of ICC World Test and ICC ODI teams for 2009. In the final of the 2011 Cricket World Cup, he hit 91 not out of just 79 balls to lead India to victory. For his outstanding batting in the final, he was awarded as the man of the match. The TIME magazine added him in its "Time 100" list of 100 most influential people of 2011.

He till date has scored 2925 runs with 4 centuries in tests and 5958 runs with 7 centuries in ODIs.