Tracing the growth of Indian test cricketers

As the five-week, four test series between India and Australia for the Border-Gavaskar trophy began on February 9 this year, it ushered in two new faces – Surya Kumar Yadav, 32 ( Player # 304) and K S Bharat,29 (# 305) into the Indian test cricket team. This induction into the national cricket team was taking place after a year's gap as none were given the debutant test cap last year.That aside, it sounded impressive to know that so many have been enabled to reach the pinnacle of cricket, as the purists of the game have always felt.

It also created the perfect scenario to find out how the passage of cricketers into Indian test cricket has evolved in its long journey from the era prior to Independence to the first quarter of the new millennium. Freeing itself from an access-controlled exclusive club of aristocrats and the glitterati, the game has now penetrated deeper and deeper into the length and breadth of this country, which was the sixth team to be accorded Test status by the British. Players have thus been spotted hailing from small towns and nondescript villages of the country, going through harder times than the city-bred, yet rubbing shoulders with the entitled ones on sheer merit and the weight of their talents.

Having begun playing cricket as a national team globally on June 25, 1932, India has played 567 tests in these nine decades and more which includes two of the four tests currently underway with the team from Down Under. The win loss stats is 172 won, 174 lost, 220 drawn and one test which was tied, incidentally against the Australian team and played at Chennai in September 1986.

Long-term followers of the game have always known that the game has undergone many changes in the last five decades, firstly with the popularity gained by the One Day International format from the early 1980s and the 21st century innovation of the T 20 format, apart from the Indian Premier League etc in the past 15 years. This transformation, which has been noted and recorded by many researchers and stat gurus is worthy of a recall once again as India enters an exciting phase of Test cricket in 2023. Two test matches are to be played out with Australia till March while the 2021-2023 World Test Championship is scheduled in June.

Hence, rather appropriately, the discovery journey about the origins of Indian test cricketers begins right at the beginning with the first-ever player, Amar Singh Ladha, who entered the Indian cricket team as its first-ever player in 1932 at the age of 21. More of that later…