India Cricket
Keep track of the best players and competitions from the most popular sport in India with Sportmonks’ Cricket API.
Keep track of the best players and competitions from the most popular sport in India with Sportmonks’ Cricket API.
The British brought cricket to India in the early 1700s, with the first documented instance of cricket being played in 1721. The first-ever match of first-class cricket in India was in 1864 between Madras and Calcutta. Not many records exist from that match. The major and defining event in the history of Cricket in India was the Partition of India following full independence. During the 1970s, the Indian cricket team began to see success overseas beating New Zealand, and holding Australia, South Africa and England to a draw. During the 1980s, India developed a more attack-focused batting line-up. Despite India’s victory in the Cricket World Cup in 1983. The team performed poorly in the Test arena, where they went 28 consecutive Test matches without a victory. However, India won the Asia Cup in 1984 and won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia in 1985. On top of that, the 1987 Cricket World Cup was held in India. Since 2000, the Indian Cricket team went through major improvements with the appointment of John Wright. The first-ever foreign coach of India.
Cricket competitions in India include the Ranji Trophy, the Duleep Trophy, the Vijay Hazare Trophy, the Deodhar Trophy, the Irani Trophy and the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy. The Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 tournament where various city franchises compete in a style like club football, is one of the world’s biggest sporting leagues and the biggest cricketing league. Cricket in India does not follow a consistent pattern. The Indian cricket team is one of the most successful cricket teams in the world, having won 2 ICC World Cups, 1 ICC World Twenty20, 2 ICC Champion’s Trophies and finished runners-up in the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship. The 2023 Cricket World Cup will be hosted by India. Cricket is an important part of Indian culture. Top players, like Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, and Rohit Sharma, often attain celebrity status and are some of the most influential figures. The Indian team shares a long-standing rivalry with the Pakistani team, and India-Pakistan matches are some of the most anticipated matches in the world, and one of the most-watched television broadcasts in the world.
Sachin Tendulkar is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer in Tests, with 15,921 runs, as well as in One-Day Internationals, with 18,426 runs. He is the only player to score more than 30,000 runs in all forms of international cricket. He is the 16th player and the first Indian to score 50,000 runs in all forms of domestic and international recognised cricket. He has also received the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award. He was known as the Master Blaster.
Virat Kohli is often considered one of the best batsmen of his era. Between 2013 and 2022 he captained the India Cricket team in more than 200 matches across all three formats. Kohli is the most successful test captain in Indian Cricket history. He won Indian of the Year in 2017 and received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award. Which is India’s highest sporting honour.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni is considered one of the greatest captains of India and one of the best Wicket Keeper-Batsman in the world. He has played the most international matches as captain (332). Dhoni is the first, and so far only, wicket-keeper to effect 150 stumping dismissals across the three forms of the game. His current total of stumpings in internationals stands at 161.
Rohit Sharma is a right-handed opening batsman and an occasional right-arm off-break bowler. He is widely acknowledged as one of the most outstanding batsmen in limited-overs cricket. Sharma currently holds the world record for the highest individual score (264) in a one-day international match and is the only player to have scored three double-centuries in one-day internationals. He won the ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year award in 2019 after he scored five centuries in the 2019 World Cup tournament.