As India face New Zealand at Kanpur in the first Test in their three-match series, it will be a special occasion. They will be the fourth team after England, Australia, and the West Indies to touch the 500-Test mark.
The game and Indian cricket has evolved and come a long way from the time CK Nayudu led out a motley crew in June 1932 at Lord's in London for India's first-ever Test match.
Vijay Hazare, Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy were some of the greats who set the standards in the 1950s, creating the platform for the game to find its place in the national consciousness. It was under the great Hazare that India got their first victory in Test cricket, against England in Madras in 1951.
The team was still making up the numbers for the most part and needed a leader who could infuse an identity into the side. That was where Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi's contribution was immense in Indian cricket. Despite not having the ammunition to topple England, Australia or West Indies, the gifted Pataudi went all out for a win and was the first who instilled the ethos of team spirit in the Indian team.
Among the many templates that were set for new cricketers to follow suit over the decades, BS Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna, Bishan Singh Bedi and Srinvas Venkataraghavan would create their own. Spin would go on to be one of the most crucial weapons that an Indian skipper would have in his bowling arsenal. Here is the leg-spin of Chandrasekhar spinning India to a famous Test and series win against England at the Oval in 1971, which would go on to be a watershed year.
Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev
The duo would make their foray into Indian cricket at different points in the 1970s. It was the era of Bombay's Little Master and the Haryana Hurricane which forged India into a strong force in international cricket.
Kapil Dev was seen as a pioneer in taking the game to the smaller towns of the country. In Gavaskar, India were lucky to have a technically sound batsman with a huge appetite for runs, who could take on the best in the world.
The all-rounder and the opener were as different as chalk and cheese with their approach to the game too. While Gavaskar relied on concentration, patience, and technique and a step by step approach to decimating an attack, Kapil Dev was intuitive and direct. India's batting would also improve by leaps and bounds with masterful middle-order batsmen like Gundappa Viswanath and Dilip Vengsarkar.
Sachin Tendulkar to Virat Kohli and everything in between
India's boy wonder of the 1990s, Sachin Tendulkar would change the face of the game forever. Under Mohammed Azharuddin, India became almost impregnable at home, not losing a single Test series for an entire decade.
Tendulkar would be joined by Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid. The swashbuckling Virender Sehwag became the first and the only Indian batsman to score a triple-century. And of course, there was Kolkata 2001 where Dravid and Laxman came together and scripted a miracle.
India would climb to No. 1 in the Test rankings for the first time in 2009. This decade also saw the emergence of Virat Kohli and his batting heroics, which have already elevated him to among the greatest in the business.
Anil Kumble's 10/74
While batting hogged the limelight, India's quiet workhorse, Anil Kumble became only the second bowler in Test cricket to take 10 wickets in a Test innings when he picked up all ten of Pakistan's wickets in the second innings in Delhi in 1999. Kumble also became the Indian skipper later, steering the team through a delicate phase in the late 2000s and finished as the highest Test wicket-taker for his country.
