Indian National Team

The Indian team's first series as an independent country was in 1948 against Australia at Brisbane. Indians led by Lala Amarnath lost the Test series 0-4. India's first ever Test victory came against England at Madras in 1952. After the independence in 1947, and its separation from India, Pakistan played its first test-match with India in 1952. This was the first major test victory for India. In 1954, India drew a 5-Test series with Pakistan 0-0, the batting strength from India had come from Polly Umrigar and Vijay Manjrekar while the prime bowler was Subhash Gupte with 21 wickets in the series. India's first series against New Zealand in 1956 created a comprehensive series victory for India, winning the 5-Test series 2-0. MH Mankad was excellent in his batting, averaging 105.2 in the series while scoring 526 runs. Once again, S.M. Gupte held India's bowling together, with 34 wickets.

During the 1980s, other players like Mohammed Azharuddin, Ravi Shastri, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, Sanjay Manjrekar, Krish Srikkanth and Maninder Singh emerged. India won the Cricket World Cup in 1983, defeating West Indies in an exciting final. In 1985, India won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia. The Test series victory in 1986 in England remained, for nearly 19 years, the last Test series win outside subcontinent. Than came the emergence of Mohinder Amarnath and "Mr. Dependable" Dilip Vengsarkar who was the undisputed No. 1 batsman in 1986-87. Sunil Gavaskar became the first batsman to accumulate 10,000 runs in Test cricket, and went on to register a record 34 centuries, surpassed only recently by Sachin Tendulkar. Kapil Dev, a genuine all-rounder, became the highest wicket taker in Test cricket, surpassing Richard Hadlee to take a total of 434 wickets, a record which has since been broken by Courtney Walsh, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan and has also been surpassed by fellow Indian Anil Kumble. The emergence of Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble in 1989 and 1990 was to herald an era of Indian cricket that was dominated by stars and individual brilliance. Sachin Tendulkar became arguably the best batsman in the world, along with Brian Lara of the West Indies and in 1998, Sir Donald Bradman himself remarked that Tendulkar batting style was similar to his.

Team India bagged the 2007 ICC World Twenty20 under the captainship of M.S.Dhoni. In recent years, Indian cricket has been marked by the intense rivalry with Pakistan. As of January 2008, the Indian team has played 414 Test matches, winning 22.46%, losing 32.13% and drawing 45.41% of its games. The team is ranked second in the ICC Test Championship rankings and fourth in the ICC ODI Championship rankings.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the governing body over the Indian cricket team. The Board has been operating since 1929 and represents India with the International Cricket Council. It is amongst the richest sporting organizations in the world. The Indian Cricket League (ICL) is a private cricket league that runs parallel to the existing cricket league managed by BCCI. At the moment, matches in the ICL follow the Twenty20 format, though there was a 50 over championship in January 2008. The Indian Premier League (also known as the "DLF Indian Premier League" for sponsorship reasons; often abbreviated as IPL), is a Twenty20 cricket competition created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The first season of the Indian Premier League commenced on 18 April 2008, and ended on 1 June 2008 with the victory of the Rajasthan Royals in the final at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai. The eight teams taking part are: Kolkata Knight Riders, Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Hyderabad Deccan Chargers, Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Daredevils, and Kings XI Punjab.