While travelling and waiting to
catch my delayed carrier few weeks back, i had penned a thought to compare the Indian
test cricket teams for last four decades since i have been watching intently
the mass opium sport in India for last four decades. I thought why cannot we
filed teams to compete with each other and find out imaginary results. I have divided teams into 80s, 90s, naughties,
and 10s. No doubt few players had crossed the decades, few omissions, but i
think you would agree to assumption that i have picked up players based on
their peaks of career, number of games played and impact they had on final
results. There will be many points of debate. But then instead of 11 i have
chosen team of 17 based on roles. You may laugh over this indulgence but it
just cost me over 20 mins waiting for my carrier. I think that's a good
collateral damage for diehard cricket fan.
Finally there is my own team
which can win in India and overseas. Pls comment on that as well.
Coming to subject, i think team of naughties and eighties will
be in finals and third will be today's team. Naughties will win thanks to new
techniques and discipline. That's why naughties was golden era in Indian
cricket since 1932.
Team of 90s here is the best crop
we could find outside the legends in 80s and naughties. Thus its called the
dark age of Indian cricket when if a
certain player was out we would switch off TV sets. and you know whom i am
talking about.
Coming to team of present, after
doing great in overseas i am waiting to see kohlis, rahanes unleash upon
opposition in last half of decade in India and away. some promising bowlers
also there. We have had the transition after 2nd april 2011 and completed by
tough Aus series and WC. Time to rise and rise. My only request is to reign
administrators. Maybe i will pen down my
musings on 31st dec 2019.
| Position in team | 2010s | Gautam XI |
| Opener | M Vijay | Sunil Gavaskar |
| opener | Shikhar Dhawan | V Sehwag |
| bat | Cheteshwar Pujara | R Dravid |
| bat | Virat Kohli | Sachin Tendulkar |
| bat | Ajinkya Rahane | Saurav Ganguly |
| bat/ar | Rohit Sharma | Kapil Dev |
| wk | W Saha | M S Dhoni |
| fast/medium | M Shami | Zaheer Khan |
| fast/medium | U Yadav | J Srinath |
| spinner | R Ashwin | Anil Kumble |
| spinner | Amit Mishra | Harbhajan Singh |
| 12th/reserve bat | A Rayadu | Virat Kohli |
| reserve op | K L Rahul | G Gambhir |
| fast/medium reserve | Bhuvaneshwar Kr | Ishant Sharma |
| fast/medium reserve | v aaron | V Prasad |
| spinner reserve | R Jadeja | R Ashwin |
| reserve wk | N Ojha | S Kirmani |
| Position | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s |
| Opener | Sunil Gavaskar | S Ramesh | V Sehwag |
| opener | K Shrikanth | S S Das | G Gambhir |
| bat | Dilip Vengsarkar | sanjay Manjrekar | Rahul Dravid |
| bat | M Azharuddin | praveen amre | Sachin Tendulkar |
| bat | Mohinder amarnath | Vinod Kambli | Saurav Ganguly |
| bat/ar | Kapil Dev | Manoj Prabhakar | V V S Laxman |
| wk | Syed Kirmani | Nayan Mongia | M S Dhoni |
| fast/medium | Roger Binni | V Prasad | Zaheer Khan |
| fast/medium | Madanlal | J Srinath | Ishant Sharma |
| spinner | L Shivarama | Rajesh chauhan | Anil Kumble |
| spinner | shivlal yadav | V Raju | Harbhajan Singh |
| 12th/reserve bat | Ravi Shastri | Ajay Jadeja | Yuvraj Singh |
| reserve op | N Sidhu | W V Raman | Akash Chopra |
| fast/medium reserve | raju kulkarni | Atul Vasan | Ajit Agarkar |
| fast/medium reserve | chetan sharma | D Mohanty | Irfan Pathan |
| spinner reserve | Maninder singh | sunil joshi | M Kartik |
| reserve wk | kiran more | M S K Prasad | D Kartik |
