Cricket in India


is the most popular sport in India by far, and is played almost everywhere. The Indian national cricket team won the 1983 Cricket World Cup, the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, the 2011 Cricket World Cup, the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy, and shared the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy with Sri Lanka. The 2023 Cricket World Cup will be hosted by India.
The domestic competitions include the Ranji Trophy, the Duleep Trophy, the Vijay Hazare Trophy, the Deodhar Trophy, the Irani Trophy and the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy. In addition, the BCCI conducts the Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 competition, which is also one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and the biggest cricket league in the world. The Indian cricket team is also accredited with the honour of winning all the ICC tournaments under M.S. Dhoni's captaincy, which is a world record. While cricket is by far the most popular sport in the country it is not the country's national sport since India has no national sport.
Cricket is an important part of the culture of India. The Indian team shares a rivalry with the Pakistani team, and India-Pakistan matches are some of the most anticipated matches, and most watched television broadcasts in the country.

History

1800s to 1918

The first ever match of first-class cricket played in India was in 1864 between Madras and Calcutta. Not many records exist from the match; however, it is known that the Man of the match was Praveen Chauhan. He hailed from Panipat, and played for Calcutta. Furthermore, the Best fielder was Ashwani Sharma. Like Chauhan, he was from Panipat as well. was regarded as one of the best batsmen of his time.
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.

1918 to 1945

India became a member of the 'elite club' joining Australia, England, South Africa, 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 the United Kingdom.

1945 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

One team totally dominated Indian cricket in the 1960s. As part of 14 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 1961–1962 season, the Duleep Trophy was inaugurated as a zonal competition. It was named after Ranji's nephew, Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji. With Bombay in its catchment, it is not surprising that the West Zone won six of the first nine titles.

1970 to 1985

Bombay continued to dominate Indian domestic cricket, with only Karnataka, Delhi, and a few other teams 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 captaincy 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 Gawaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath responsible for the back-to-back series wins in 1971 in the West Indies and in England, under the captaincy of Ajit Wadekar.
The Indian women's team made its test debut in 1976, becoming the third nation to do so. It made its ODI debut on 1 January 1978.

1985 to 2000

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 Mohammad Azharuddin, Dilip Vengsarkar and Ravi Shastri prominent during this decade. The 1987 Cricket World Cup was held in India.

21st century

Sachin Tendulkar was one of key members during 1995–2007 for Team India in multiple formats.
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 also the first Sub-continental team to win 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.
In September 2007, India won the first ever Twenty20 World Cup held in South Africa, beating their arch-rivals Pakistan by 5 runs in a thrilling final.
India won the Cricket World Cup in 2011 under the captainship of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the first time since 1983 – they beat Sri Lanka in the final held in Mumbai.
India played its 500th Test match against New Zealand at Kanpur from 22 September 2016. India won this match by 197 runs. This test was played under the captaincy of Virat Kohli.

Organisation of cricket in modern India

International cricket

International cricket in India generally does not follow a fixed pattern. For example, the English schedule under which the nation tours other countries during winter and plays at home during the summer. Generally, there has recently been a tendency to play more one-day matches than Test matches. Cricket in India is managed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the richest cricket board in the cricket world, yet, average cricket fans cannot get hold of tickets to see matches, much of which are distributed as largesse. Indian International Cricket Squad has also provided some of the greatest players to the world, the biggest example of which is Sachin Tendulkar. Indian cricket has a rich history. The Indian national team is currently ranked the No. 1 team in Test, No. 2 in ODI and but at 4th position in T20I. India has won two World Championship cups in 1983 under the captaincy of Kapil Dev and recently won in year 2011 under the captaincy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, which is won after a span of 28 years.

First class competitions

In Twenty20, stronger crowd participation was seen than in other forms of the game. It has been greatly acknowledged by people and has made huge profits.

Youth competitions