From ‘Little Master’ to ‘Master Blaster’ to ‘King Kohli’, India’s never-ending batting riches makes them formidable on home soil
India has always been considered a formidable Test playing nation playing at home. The subcontinent cricketing giants have been labelled as ‘Lions at Home’ owing to their impressive track record of winning a majority of their bilateral Test series on home soil over the last four decades.
India’s stupendous track record in Test cricket at home has been majorly on account of the batting riches it has possessed over the years. While the world-class Indian spinners have definitely played their part in bowling out oppositions on spin-friendly wickets, it has been the batting heavyweights who have laid the foundation for winning matches by piling up daunting totals and giving the bowlers a chance to cast a web around the touring Test team.
The slow and low Indian tracks, devoid of much seam movement are ideal for heavy run scoring and hence batsmen at the first class level cherish playing on docile Indian tracks and become well accustomed to the pace and bounce once they don the Test jersey for the nation. Indian batsmen have been known to be elegant stroke-makers with wristy shot making abilities and lighting quick footwork.
They are very strong off their pads and are exceptional players of spin. While playing their junior cricket in the streets or maidans of India, batting is the first thought that comes to a budding cricketer’s mind. Indians have grown up emulating many of their batting stalwarts and got inspired listening to their legendary heroics with the willow.
On the batting friendly sub-continent pitches, Indian Test sides have always had the luxury of having two or three world-class stroke makers in the same era. Indian has produced exceptional strokemakers like Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Virat Kohli and also given Test cricket some of the finest technicians with the willow in Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Vishwanath, Rahul Dravid and Cheteshwar Pujara, who have played the workhorse role to perfection and been the lynchpin of the batting order.
Over the years, India have had a string of exceptional stroke makers in their Test squads while playing at home. In the '70s and early '80s, they had the ‘Little Master’ Sunil Gavaskar who was the mainstay of the Indian batting lineup. Gavaskar with his stoic defence and well-organized technique was rock solid at the top of the order and scored heaps of runs in batting friendly Indian conditions.
The middle order had one of the finest exponents with the willow in Gundappa Vishwanath. He had good company in the form of the classy Dilip Vengsarkar and the courageous Mohinder Amarnath, the best Indian player of fast bowling. Hard-hitting all-rounder Kapil Dev provided the impetus with his lusty hitting and wicket-keeper batsman Syed Kirmani was a handy contributor with the bat.
There were all-rounders like Ravi Shastri and Manoj Prabhakar who could bat anywhere in the order and provide flexibility to the team. In the mid-80s, the emergence of talented stroke makers like Mohammad Azharuddin, Navjot Sindhu and Sanjay Manjrekar further strengthened the Test batting unit.
In the '90s, batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar was ranked among the best batsmen in Test cricket. The ‘Master Blaster’ took the attack to the best of bowling line-ups in the world and scored tons of runs and notched up match winning tons with phenomenal consistency. India also had the stylish Azharuddin who was a master at accumulating runs with his wristy strokeplay.
Azhar had good company in the form of the talismanic yet dependable Navjot Sidhu, technically sound Sanjay Manjrekar and the maverick yet superbly gifted southpaw Vinod Kambli. Wicketkeeper-batsman Nayan Mongia was no mug with the bat and made meaningful contributions. In the mid-90s, the emergence of prodigious batting talents in Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly gave a big boost to the Indian batting and reduced a lot of burden on the shoulders of Sachin and Azhar.
At the turn of the millennium, India had its strongest ever batting line-up under the aegis of Sourav Ganguly. While Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir were a dependable opening pair who provided stability at the top of the order, the middle order had a galaxy of batting stalwarts in Tendulkar, Dravid, VVS Laxman and Ganguly. While Sehwag was the destructive opener scoring some quickfire runs up the order, Dravid was the ever dependable 'Wall' who held the innings together and kept one end tight.
Meanwhile, Sachin was the most complete batsman of his generation with a wide array of shots in his armoury and VVS Laxman looked very special with those wristy flicks. One can't forget the brave heart Ganguly who scored some fighting knocks down the order.
Under MS Dhoni, the Indian team was once again a top-notch Test side at home, winning a spree of bilateral series and reaching the Number One ranking in the longer format. When the ‘Fab Five’ bid farewell to Test cricket, a new looking Indian team came to the fore with some really talented batsman in their ranks.
Shikhar Dhawan took over the mantle of opening the batting from his illustrious Delhi predecessors. Murali Vijay leapfrogged into Test cricket after his stellar success at the IPL and became a frontline opener in red ball cricket. The tenacious Virat Kohli looked to have the zeal and hunger to score runs with superlative consistency and Cheteshwar Pujara with his rock-solid defence and sound technique seemed to be the heir apparent to Rahul Dravid.
'Captain Cool' MS Dhoni was a free-flowing wicketkeeper-batsman who provided quickfire cameos to step up the scoring rate. The batting had depth with quality allrounders like Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja who could chip in with the bat lower down the order. It took a while but in the end, they again had a well-settled batting lineup which scored a plethora of runs in home conditions and contributed to the team's success.
Under Virat Kohli, the Indian team has emerged even stronger and simply become a juggernaut at home. They have been unbeatable at home over the last three seasons and helped India equal a record ten consecutive Test series wins at home. The batsmen who honed their batting skills under Dhoni’s captaincy have matured into seasoned Test players and are at the peaks of their batting prowess, playing in home conditions.
While the skipper Virat Kohli leads by example with his run-scoring feats, the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara, Murali Vijay, Ajinkya Rahane and KL Rahul have consistently been among the runs in bilateral Test series played at home. In a nutshell, the batting has consistently delivered as a unit over the last three years and helped the team post some daunting totals to put the opposition on the back foot. The potent bowling lineup has then come to the party and bowled out oppositions in their own backyard.
Indian cricket seems to be in safe hands and going in the right direction with promising batting talents like Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya who seem intent to carry forward the nation’s great legacy of producing the best with the willow in the future.