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Introduction of Pakistan into Cricket and India's first Test win

Indian Cricket Team in 1936

Pakistan Cricket Team in 1952

After the Independence of India & Pakistan from the British India in 1947, Pakistan required to make their separate team and they eventually did in the year 1952. Gul Mohammad, Abdul Kardar & Amir Elahi who previously played Test matches for India moved to Pakistan and played for them. Pakistan had some great fast bowlers it became clear from the way pacer Fazl Mahmood took 12 wickets in a match against England at The Oval in 1954. Pakistan's political tensions with India lead to a development of another Ashes like rivalry known as the Indo-Pak rivalry.

Indian Cricket team which played their first Test match in 1932 won their first match no sooner than 1952 Test match against England in Madras. The very same year they won their first Test series in their history which came against Pakistan. Three years later they won the series against New Zealand at home. But the rest of the 1950s was just as bad. England won the 5-match Test series against India in India 5-0 in 1959. Indian Cricket improved massively under the leadership of Ajit Wadekar. In 1962, they won their first Test series against England at home. This was followed by a home dominance when it became difficult to beat India in India. The major challenge was now to win an away series. The moment jut came in 1968 when they beat New Zealand in New Zealand.

India now had brilliant spinners who made it incredibly tough for their opposition to score runs against them. The spin quartet of Bishen Singh Bedi, Erappali Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrashekhar and Srinivas Venkatraghavan. They also found some really good batsman in Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath, Dilip Sardesai and Dilip Vengsarkar. They eventually won a series in West Indies in 1971 which had very good batsmen and some decent spin bowlers. The biggest of all was their Test series win in England the same year.


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