INDIA TEAM HISTORY

INDIA TEAM HISTORY

India's first ever Test victory came against England at Madras in 1952. India's first series victory was against Pakistan later the same year. In 1954, India drew a 5-Test series with Pakistan 0-0, the batting strength from India had come from Polly Umrigar and Vijay Manjrekar while the prime bowler was Subhash Gupte with 21 wickets in the series. India's first series against New Zealand in 1956 created a comprehensive series victory for India, winning the 5-Test series 2-0. MH Mankad was excellent in his batting, averaging 105.2 in the series while scoring 526 runs. Once again, S.M. Gupte held India's bowling together, with 34 wickets. The remainder of the 1950s did not show as good results as the start: India lost a 3-Test series to Australia (2-0), lost a 5-Test series against the West Indies (3-0), took a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of England, and lost a second series against a strong Australian side (2-1).

The team's performances began to improve in the 1960s, starting with their first series win over England in 1961-62. During this time, India's strong record at home started to develop, in which the team won a series against New Zealand in 1965-66 and drew series against Pakistan, Australia and England. In 1967-68, India won their first series outside the subcontinent against New Zealand.

Sunil Gavaskar made his debut for India in the West Indies in 1970-71 and immediately made an impact, scoring a total of 774 runs for the series and helping India to a 1-0 series win, their first ever win over the West Indies. Together with established players like Bishen Bedi, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, Erapalli Prasanna and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Gavaskar formed the nucleus of arguably India's strongest Test team up to that point in time. India's win over the West Indies was followed by home and away wins over England in 1971 and 1972-73.

Since advancing to full Test Status and the creation of more and more international cricket tournaments, India has slowly become involved in a number of Cricketing tournament's including the Cricket World Cup, ICC Champions Trophy and Asia Cup. India's first two Cricket were largely failures, and the team failed to progress beyond the first round. But India upset the West Indies in the final of the 1983 Cricket World Cup to claim the Prudential Cricket World Cup for the first time, captained by Kapil Dev. India and the West Indies had cruised through the preliminary rounds in Group B, while England and Pakistan emerged the victors from Group A. Most considered India to be the underdogs in the group stages, and their win against West Indies was categorized as similar to Zimbabwe's win over Australia in the same World Cup. They were, in fact, quoted as having odds of 66 to 1 before the beginning of the tournament.

India's performance in the remaining world cups has been considerably consistent. In the 1987 Cricket World Cup, the team advanced to the semi-finals as favourites, they did the same in 1996, both times they suffered upset defeats in the semi-finals. India was less strong in the 1999 Cricket World Cup, and did not make it past the Super Six section. However they impressed all in the 2003 Cup, only losing two games (both against reigning champions Australia) and advancing to the finals before taking a loss.

In the year after their World Cup victory, (1984) India continued its new-found dominance over One Day Cricket with a comprehensive win over arch-rivals Pakistan in the final. They went on to secure more victories over their Asian rivals, winning the 1984 Asia Cup with a victory over Sri Lanka in the finals. It won its third consecutive Asia Cup with a victory over Sri Lanka in 1990. It continued its strong streak in 1995, again beating Sri Lanka in the final. However, in 1997, a confident Sri Lanka riding on their first-ever World Cup victory swept past a weaker Indian side, breaking the 4-tournament winning streak. India's performance dipped lower from there, with India not advancing to the finals in 2000 and coming runners-up against Sri Lanka in 2004.

India has also participated in three Australasia Cups. However, they have never won this tournament, but have come runners-up twice ailed to make it into the finChampions in 2002 and were eliminated in the first round of the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy.

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