Top 5 Indian batting pairs in international cricket
Over the years, Indian Cricket has produced several reputed names in the sport. The list containing the likes of Kapil Dev, Mohinder Amarnath, Sunil Gavaskar, Bishan Singh Bedi, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Rahul Dravid, etc. This list extends until the players of today, like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah and so on, who have already cemented their place in the game and the hearts of millions of fans, within a short span of time.
Batsmen have always played a cardinal role in fans developing a greater interest towards the game. Arguably, spectators at large view batting as a bigger art than bowling, even today. And that is also the eventual reason why batsmen like Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Sunil Gavaskar and so on have more importance in an Indian cricket fan's point-of-view. The situation is not different in other countries either, in case you wondered.
Time and again, we have read several stories and statistical pieces on the individual highlights and numbers of several Indian batsmen, alone. But as we know, cricket is a team game and the old adage says, two heads are definitely better than one.
Hence, let's now take a look at the best five of the most fruitful partnerships between pairs of some amazing cricketers throughout the length of their respective careers, across all international formats.
We have taken into consideration their numbers, figures, overall span and also how crucial their stands have been for the team.
#1 Sachin Tendulkar - Sourav Ganguly
The Tendulkar-Ganguly stand is one of a kind that was never been seen before, or after the time of both of them. In the seventeen years they played together, they amassed 12400 runs in 247 innings. That included 83 stands with scores above 50 runs and 38 of them were three-figure scores. Had this been a single cricketer's numbers, he would easily have been a legend of the game.
A decade after Ganguly stopped playing, the duo still holds the highest opening partnership numbers, with 6,362 runs in 129 matches, which includes twenty 100-run partnerships and 22 fifty-run stands.
A memorable moment from their stint would be when the duo compiled a record-making 252-run stand as openers, in a 1998 game against Sri Lanka. The match was won easily by India, and so were over 85% of games that featured a 50-or-more partnership between the duo.
Key numbers:
Span: 1992-2008
Innings: 247
Not-Outs: 6
Runs: 12400
High Score: 281
Average: 51.45
Centuries: 38
Fifties: 45