Indian cricket has a rich history and is a sport that was officially introduced during the colonial era and has since gained popularity among both the native populace and the British expatriate community. Indian cricket took some time but it has grown over the years. And now, India as a country has the best culture as far as cricket as a sport is concerned. Today, we will talk about the ‘golden era’ of Indian cricket and compare the different eras over the years. So let’s start.
The roots of Indian cricket
Cricket has a rich history that goes all the way back to colonial times. Early in the 18th century, cricket became popular in India. The British brought the sport to the Indian subcontinent during their colonial rule.
The Bombay Presidency Match in 1844 is often considered one of the earliest significant cricket matches played in India. Over the years, cricket become one of the major sources of entertainment.
India’s first international match
Indian cricket team played its first international match in 1932 against England at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London. Team India lost that game by 158 runs.
Indian cricket took time to evolve
Indian cricket took some time before they were called a competitive force on a global stage. So many great players came in different eras but as a team, India was still far behind others like England, Australia, West Indies, etc.
Slowly, India started winning a few games and drawing the test matches but the biggest moment in Indian cricket came in 1983, when India won the ODI World Cup.
Kapil Dev led the team to their first World Cup title
That was the time when no one was giving a chance to the Indian Team. Everyone thinks that the team will come back home after just participating in the tournament.
The underdogs India did what no one was expecting. They won the World Cup by beating the giant West Indies in the final.
Still not the best era of Indian cricket
India won the World Series championship as well in 1985. Although these were some big achievements. But we still didn’t consider this era as ‘the golden era’ in Indian cricket.
The late 1990s to early 2010s was one of the best era
From the late 1990s, Team India started doing well consistently and becoming a force in world cricket. When Saurav Ganguly took charge of Indian cricket, he brought that intimidation to the team. The team started winning consistently at home. And the opposition team started taking Indian cricket seriously from that time. It becomes very hard for the opposition to beat India at their home.
India started winning overseas
In that era, Team India started winning test matches outside of India. The opposition can’t take the Indian cricket team lightly as they had a very great team at that time.
So India started winning consistently at home and even overseas in the era of Ganguly’s leadership. One of the examples was drawing the test series in Australia in 2003-04. India also won the two-match test series in England in 2007. Although Ganguly wasn’t the captain of the team. But he made so many great players during that period.
Ganguly backed players and made them big
During his tenure, he backed so many players who went on to play for India for so many years. Players like V Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, etc. were made by Dada. And with legends like Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, etc. in the team, that team looks great on paper and can win anywhere in the world. They had one of the best batting lineups in the world.
MS Dhoni fulfilled the dreams of India to win the ICC trophies
MS Dhoni has also backed players and made them big like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, R Ashwin, R Jadeja, etc. When Dhoni took charge, India won the T20 WC in 2007, the ODI WC in 2011, and the Champions Trophy in 2013 as well.
That’s why we considered this era (Late 1990s to early 2010s) as the best because India has achieved a lot.
Virat Kohli brings the fast bowling culture and fitness standard
Although that was the best era in Indian cricket, my opinion on this is partially different. When Virat took charge, he brought the culture of fast bowling to the team. We started winning games and series due to our fast bowling.
Before that, we rely on our spinners to win games. We used to have great fast bowlers before as well, but as a unit, we have seen the pace unit making life difficult for the opposition in tandem.
India used to win test matches overseas, but in Virat’s captaincy era, we won two test series in Australia and drew the series 2-2 in England.
So this is the one thing that I would like to add other than the golden era in Indian cricket.
Conclusion
What do you think? Which era of the golden era in Indian cricket? Everyone has a different opinion on this one. Some would like the Gangluy-Dhoni era, some would like Virat’s era. Comment your favorite Indian Cricket memory.
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