All-time Indian cricket Test XI
Despite the advent of one day internationals and T20s, Test cricket is still held in high regard, with most cricketers considering success in the longer format of the game as the ultimate achievement in the sport.
With that in mind, Sportskeeda decided to make its own greatest Indian Test XI of all time to honour the greats of Indian cricket who have cemented their names in the annals of the sport’s history.
The Selected All-Time Test XI
(Stats up-to-date till 22 August 2013)
How the players were selected
How do you select 11 players out of the countless legends that the country has produced in its history? We handed that job to a list of select cricket experts, who after great deliberation came up with their own Indian all-time Test XIs. After accumulating the votes that we received, our own ‘greatest all -time Indian Test XI’ was formed.
List of panelists and their selected XIs (in surname-wise alphabetical order)
Satish Acharya (Editorial Cartoonist, ESPNCricinfo and other sites) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Kapil Dev, MS Dhoni (captain), Anil Kumble, Bishan Singh Bedi, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan
Joy Bhattacharjya (Advisor at Kolkata Knight Riders, former Head of Production at ESPN-Star Sports) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Gundappa Vishwanath, Kapil Dev, Vinoo Mankad, MS Dhoni (captain), Bishan Singh Bedi, EAS Prasanna, Zaheer Khan
Rohit Brijnath (Senior Correspondent, The Straits Times) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Kapil Dev, Vinoo Mankad, Syed Kirmani, Anil Kumble (captain), Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan
Jaideep Chakrabarty (Featured Columnist, Sportskeeda) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Kapil Dev, MS Dhoni (captain), Anil Kumble, EAS Prasanna, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan
Shamya Dasgupta (Senior Editor at Wisden India and author of Bhiwani Junction) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Gundappa Vishwanath, Kapil Dev, Vinoo Mankad, MS Dhoni (captain), BS Chandrashekhar, Bishan Singh Bedi, Zaheer Khan
Deepak Gopalakrishnan (Cricket blogger and cartoonist) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid (captain), Viay Hazare, Kapil Dev, Vinoo Mankad, MS Dhoni, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Karsan Ghavri
Subash Jayaraman (Cricket blogger and podcaster at The Cricket Couch) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Gundappa Vishwanath, VVS Laxman, Kapil Dev, MS Dhoni (captain), Anil Kumble, Bishan Singh Bedi, Zaheer Khan
Mohandas Menon (Cricket Statistician at Wisden India and DNA) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly (captain), Viay Hazare, Kapil Dev, Vinoo Mankad, MS Dhoni, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath
Ramaswamy Mohan (Resident Editor, Deccan Chronicle) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Vijay Merchant, Vijay Hazare, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid (captain), Kapil Dev, Vinoo Mankad, MS Dhoni, Anil Kumble, EAS Prasanna, Javagal Srinath
Anupam Mukerji (Fake IPL Player and co-founder of Pitch Invasion) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Gundappa Vishwanath, Kapil Dev, Vinoo Mankad, MS Dhoni, Anil Kumble (captain), Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan
Bharath Seervi (Cricket Statistician at Sportskeeda and other sites) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, MAK Pataudi (captain), Kapil Dev, MS Dhoni, Anil Kumble, S Venkataraghavan, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan
Mahesh Sethuraman (Independent cricket blogger for ESPNCricinfo and other publications, known as ‘cornerd tigers’) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Vijay Merchant, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid (captain), Kapil Dev, MS Dhoni, Anil Kumble, EAS Prasanna, Zaheer Khan, Mohammad Nissar
Sidin Vadukut (Managing Editor at Livemint, columnist for ESPNCricinfo, author of the ‘Dork’ trilogy) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly (captain), VVS Laxman, Kapil Dev, Bishan Singh Bedi, EAS Prasanna, BS Chandrashekar, Zaheer Khan
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan (Columnist, ESPNCricinfo and Sidvee blogs) -
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Gundappa Vishwanath, VVS Laxman, Kapil Dev (captain), MS Dhoni, Anil Kumble, Bishan Singh Bedi, Zaheer Khan
Total votes received
Openers
Sunil Gavaskar (14), Virender Sehwag (13), Vijay Merchant (2)
Middle order
Sachin Tendulkar (14), Rahul Dravid (14), VVS Laxman (6), Gundappa Vishwanath (5), Vijay Hazare (3), Sourav Ganguly (2), MAK Pataudi (1)
All-rounders
Kapil Dev (14), Vinoo Mankad (7)
Wicket-keeper
MS Dhoni (12), Syed Kirmani (1)
Spinners
Anil Kumble (11), Bishan Singh Bedi (6), EAS Prasanna (5), BS Chandrasekhar (2), S Venkataraghavan (1)
Fast bowlers
Zaheer Khan (12), Javagal Srinath (7), Karsan Ghavri (1), Mohammad Nissar (1)
Captain
MS Dhoni (5), Rahul Dravid (3), Sourav Ganguly (2), Anil Kumble (2), Kapil Dev (1), Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi (1)
The Team
Sunil Gavaskar
Widely regarded as one of the greatest opening batsmen in Test history, Gavaskar held the record for most Test runs and Test centuries by any batsman during his career, with his total of 34 Test centuries broken by Sachin Tendulkar in December 2005. Gavaskar had a particularly high average of 65.45 against the West Indies, who at the time possessed one of the most fearsome bowling attacks in the world.
Virender Sehwag
An aggressive opening batsman, Sehwag is the only Indian to be honoured with the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World award, which he won in 2009. Sehwag holds multiple records, including the highest score made by an Indian in Test cricket (319), which was also the fastest triple century in the history of international cricket (made off only 278 balls). He also scored the fastest 250 by any batsman (in 207 balls against Sri Lanka), and has recorded the highest (319), second highest (309) and third highest (293) scores made by an Indian batsman in Test cricket.
Rahul Dravid
Known as ‘The Wall’, Dravid is considered one of the greatest batsmen to have ever played the game, and is the third-highest run-getter in Tests after Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting. Wisden ranked him the third-greatest Test batsman of all time after Don Bradman and Tendulkar, and in 2011, Dravid became the first non-Australian cricketer to address the Bradman Oration in Canberra.
Sachin Tendulkar
Tendulkar is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket, and has to his name the most runs scored by any individual in international cricket, along with 100 international centuries. Wisden ranked him the second-greatest Test batsman of all time behind Bradman, and he was named an honourary member of the Order of Australia in 2012.
VVS Laxman
A middle-order batsman known for his superb timing and his supple wrist-work, Laxman was the proverbial thorn in the flesh for Australia, who during the player’s career were undisputedly the best team in world cricket. Laxman scored 6 out of his 17 Test hundreds, including both his double centuries, against Australia, and was also India’s second innings saviour on many an occasion, rescuing the team with crucial knocks.
MS Dhoni (captain)
Among the best Indian captains to date, Dhoni led India to the number one spot in ICC’s Test rankings for the first time in their history. He also holds the record for the most number of dismissals by an Indian keeper.
Vinoo Mankad
One of India’s finest all-rounders, Mankad was an opening batsman and slow left-arm orthodox bowler. In 1956, he set a then-world record first-wicket partnership of 413 runs with Pankaj Roy in a match against New Zealand, which still remains India’s best opening effort in Tests.
Kapil Dev
A great all-rounder and leader of the Indian bowling attack during the ’80s, Kapil Dev was dubbed the ‘Haryana Hurricane’, and boasted the record for most Test wickets by an individual (434) when he retired. One of the few players in the history of cricket to have taken more than 400 wickets and scored more than 5,000 runs in Tests, Dev was named Indian Cricketer of the Century in 2002 by Wisden, and is considered one of the most complete all-rounders to have played the game.
Anil Kumble
‘Jumbo’, as Anil Kumble was fondly called, is the highest wicket-taker for India in Tests and third-highest overall, behind only Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan and Australia’s Shane Warne. Not a big turner of the ball, Kumble made up for that with his relentless accuracy and variations, and remains one of only two players to take all 10 wickets in a Test innings, the other being England’s Jim Laker.
Zaheer Khan
A left-arm fast bowler known for his ability to swing the ball both ways, Khan has 295 Test victims and is fourth on the list of all-time Indian Test wicket-takers. He is known for his ability to get the ball to reverse swing, and was a key figure in India’s re-emergence in the 2000s.
Javagal Srinath
Srinath was the second Indian fast bowler after Kapil Dev to take 200 Test wickets. He was India’s leading pacer during the ’90s and the first exponent of real ‘express’ speed, having once reportedly clocked 157 km/hour on a delivery during the 1996 tour of South Africa, although there is no confirmation of his feat and could simply be hearsay.
To see the greatest Indian ODI team chosen by these expert panelists, click here: All-time Indian ODI cricket XI