The chapter of cricket in India started due to the British rule in India. The East India Company came to India with the motive to rule it also came with cricket. Cricket came to India along with the East India Company in the year 1600 by the orders of Queen Elizabeth I. Now coming to the present time Indians have loved the sports as their own and mastered it as well. Meanwhile, even the past colonial masters cannot defeat India in their own game. The Indian cricket team is considered one of the world’s top most teams.
Detailed analysis on how Cricket in India evolved over time:
The Past:
As we just mentioned, the concept of cricket in India started due to the British rule in India. The East India Company came to India and brought the game of cricket with them. A game which was supposed to be played with a wooden bat and a leather ball. After the orders of Queen Elizabeth I, East India Company moved to India and brought Cricket with them. The first ever recorded cricket match in India was recorded in a report of English sailors of the East India Company written in 1737. The first match was played by sailors at Cambay, near Baroda in 1721.
After that the game of cricket was widely popular in India especially among the young ones. Indians accepted the game and started playing it like their own. Indian elite players quickly adopted the game and started playing in British teams as well as with one another. But soon after that even the cricket was divided into classes. The cricket played by commoners were considered low class meanwhile the cricket played by royals, East India Company members were considered First class which were also regulated by a cricket board. The first ever recorded first class cricket match was in 1864 between Madras (Chennai now) and Calcutta (Kolkata now).
Britishers ruled India for nearly 200 years before it gained complete independence in the year 1947. After Indian independence the world of cricket also got independence from the British rule and India spread its wings for the first time to conquer the world with cricket. After the independence first Indian international cricket team was formed. But at that time India was not considered a strong cricket team. It took India over 20 years to get their first Test match victory. The iconic victory moment of India came in 1952 against none other than England. At that time the Indian cricket team was led by Vijay Hazare who strategically demolished the English side by an innings and 8 runs.
The Present:
At present, as we all already know, the Indian cricket team is so formidable that you can count on fingers the number of teams who actually stand a chance against Indian Cricket team. After independence India was divided into three countries named India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. All three countries are considered one of the best cricket teams in the world.
And all three have their own cricket leagues. India has IPL (Indian Premier League), Pakistan has PSL (Pakistan Super League) and Bangladesh has the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) which you can learn more about in thisarticle on cricketbettingadvice.com. The BPL was just founded in 2012 but has already become one of the top cricket tournaments all over the world. Naturally, this has attracted a lot of betting companies like 888sport or 10 Cric that are anxiously awaiting the eighth edition scheduled to take place in spring.
Right now Indian cricket team has 2 world cups in their name. India is only second to Australia who has won 5 cups till now. This is a tremendous feat considering the country has been independent for 74 Years now.
Legendary Players Made India Successful:
After the independence a few legendary players rose up and led India to new heights. Those players were: Vijay Hazare, Vinoo Mankad, Sachin Tendulkar, M.S Dhoni, SauravGanguli, Mohammad Azharuddin, Rahul Dravid, VirendraSehwag, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman and Yuvraj Singh. The year 2014 is regarded as one of the greatest year for Indian cricket team under the captaincy of Sachin Tendulkar. Under his captaincy, India won many cups including the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, the CB Series of 2007–08, the 2010 and 2016 Asia Cups, along with the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup and notb to forget the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy. Tendulkar is the only player in the world to have scored one hundred international centuries. He also became the first batsman to score a double century in a ODI along with the holder of the record for the most number of runs in both Test and ODI, and the only player to complete more than 30,000 runs in international cricket in just 24 years of playing cricket.
Conclusion:
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind right now in the world that India has now become a formidable force in the world of cricket. The world’s largest democratic country had its share of painful past yet it has now risen up to become a powerful cricket team.
