Before 1918
Main article: History of cricket in India to 1918
The entire history of cricket in India and the sub-continent as a whole is based on the existence and development of the British Raj via the East India Company. In 1721, the first definite reference to cricket being played anywhere in the sub-continent is a report of English sailors of the East India Company playing a game at Cambay, near Baroda. The Calcutta Cricket and Football Club is known to be in existence by 1792, but was possibly founded more than a decade earlier. In 1799, another club was formed at Seringapatam in south India after the successful British siege and the defeat of Tipu Sultan. In 1864, a Madras v. Calcutta match was arguably the start of first-class cricket in India.
1918 to 1945
Main article: History of cricket in India from 1918–19 to 1945
India became a member of the “elite club” joining England, South Africa, England, New Zealand and the West Indies in June 1932. India's first match in Lords against England attracted a massive crowd of 24,000 people as well as the King of England, who was also the Emperor of India
The Ranji Trophy was launched as India's national championship following a meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in July 1934 and the competition began in the 1934-35 season. The trophy was donated by the Maharajah of Patiala but named after KS Ranjitsinhji ("Ranji"), even though he barely played any of his cricket in the country. Ranji had died on 2 April 1933. The first two Ranji Trophy championship winners was Bombay
1945 to 1960
Main article: History of cricket in India from 1945–46 to 1960
The major and defining event in the history of Indian cricket during this period was the Partition of India following full independence from the British Raj in 1947.
An early casualty of change was the Bombay Quadrangular tournament which had been a focal point of Indian cricket for over 50 years. The new India had no place for teams based on ethnic origin. As a result, the Ranji Trophy came into its own as the national championship. The last-ever Bombay Pentangular, as it had become, was won by the Hindus in 1945-46. India also recorded its first Test victory in 1952, beating England by an innings in Madras
1960 to 1970
Main article: History of cricket in India from 1960–61 to 1970
One team totally dominated Indian cricket in the 1960s. As part of 15 consecutive victories in the Ranji Trophy from 1958-59 to 1972-73, Bombay won the title in all ten seasons of the period under review. Among its players were Farokh Engineer, Dilip Sardesai, Bapu Nadkarni, Ramakant Desai, Baloo Gupte, Ashok Mankad and Ajit Wadekar.
In the 1961-62 season, the Duleep Trophy was inaugurated as a zonal competition. It was named after Ranji's nephew, Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji (1905–59). With Bombay in its catchment, it is not surprising that the West Zone won six of the first nine titles
1970 to 1985
Main article: History of cricket in India from 1970–71 to 1985
Bombay continued its dominance of Indian domestic cricket with only Karnataka and Delhi and some other teame which were able to mount any kind of challenge during this period.
India enjoyed two international highlights. In 1971, they won a Test series in England for the first time ever, surprisingly defeating Ray Illingworth's Ashes winners. In 1983, again in England, India were surprise winners of the 1983 Cricket World Cup under the captainship of Kapil Dev.
During the 1970s, the Indian cricket team began to see success overseas beating New Zealand, and holding Australia, South Africa and England to a draw. The backbone of the team were the Indian spin quartet - Bishen Bedi, E.A.S. Prasanna, BS Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkataraghavan, giving rise to what would later be called the Golden Era of Indian cricket history. This decade also saw the emergence of two of India's best ever batsmen, Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath responsible for the back-to-back series wins in 1971 in the West Indies and in England, under the captaincy of Ajit Wadekar
1985 to 2000
Main article: History of cricket in India from 1985–86 to 2000
Sourav Ganguly in action
From the 1993–94 season, the Duleep Trophy was converted from a knockout competition to a league format.
Several team names and spellings were altered during the 1990s when traditional Indian names were introduced to replace those that were associated with the British Raj. Most notably, Bombay became Mumbai and the famous venue of Madras became Chennai.
During the 1980s, India developed a more attack-focused batting line-up with talented batsmen such as Mohammed Azharuddin, Dilip Vengsarkar and Ravi Shastri prominent during this decade. Despite India's victory in the Cricket World Cup in 1983, the team performed poorly in the Test arena, including 28 consecutive Test matches without a victory. However, India won the Asia Cup in 1984 and won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia in 1985. The 1987 Cricket World Cup was held in India
21st century
Main article: History of cricket in India from 2000–01
Sachin Tendulkar celebrates upon reaching his 38th Test century against Australia in the 2nd Test at the SCG in 2008, where he finished not out on 154
The BCCI tinkered with the Duleep Trophy in the 2002-03 season. The original zonal teams were replaced by five new teams called Elite A, Elite B, Elite C, Plate A and Plate B. These teams were constructed from the new Elite Group and Plate Group divisions which had been introduced into the Ranji Trophy that season. However, this format lasted for only one season as it was felt that the new teams lacked a sense of identity. From the 2003-04 season, the five original zonal teams competed along with a sixth guest team which was a touring foreign team. The first guest team was England A in 2003-04.
Mumbai (formerly Bombay) has continued its dominance of the domestic scene into the 21st century by winning the Ranji Trophy five times in the first decade.
Since 2000, the Indian team underwent major improvements with the appointment of John Wright, India's first ever foreign coach. This appointment met success internationally as India maintained their unbeaten home record against Australia in Test series after defeating them in 2001 and won the inaugural ICC World T20 in 2007. India was the also the first Sub-continental team to win a Test match at the WACA in January 2008 against Australia.
India's victory against the Australians in 2001 marked the beginning of a dream era for the team under the captainship of Sourav Ganguly, winning Test matches in Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, West Indies and England. India also shared a joint victory with Sri Lanka in the ICC Championship, and went on to the finals in the 2003 Cricket World Cup only to be beaten by Australia.
India won the Cricket World Cup in 2011 under the captainship of Mahindra Singh Dhoni[9], the first time since 1983 - they beat Sri Lanka in the final held in Mumbai.
In September 2007, it won the first ever Twenty20 World Cup held in South Africa, beating Pakistan by 5 runs in a thrilling final.
http://the-indian-cricket.blogspot.com/ - The Indian Cricket -History of Indian cricket and old photos
Virender Sehwag (born 20 October 1978), affectionately known as Viru, the Nawab of Najafgarh, or the Zen master of modern cricket, is one of the leading batsmen in the Indian cricket team. 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 honoured 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.
