To mark the 75 years of Indian Cricket since India played its first cricket match against England in 1932, eight former Indian captains – G R Vishwanath, Dilip Vengsarkar, S Venkataraghavan, K Srikkanth, Ajit Wadekar, Nari Contractor, Syed Kirmani and Abbas Ali Baig – were requested to pick their all-time India best Test XI. From the selections made by the eight ex-captains, a panel consisting of Prasanna, well-known sports journalist Rajan Bala and PTI Editors came up with the all-time great XI.
The All Time Great Indian XI Test Cricket Team
- Sunil Gavaskar (captain)
- Vinoo Mankad
- Vijay Hazare (vice-captain)
- Sachin Tendulkar
- Mohammed Azharuddin
- G R Vishwanath
- Kapil Dev
- Syed Kirmani (wk)
- Javagal Srinath
- EAS Prasanna
- Subash Gupte
12th Man : Vijay Manjrekar
Reserve Team : Mohammed Nissar, B S Chandrasekhar, Rahul Dravid
Former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin, did not figure in any of the teams chosen by the ex-captains but the panel included him with Prasanna explaining that the Hyderabad player was the most elegant batsman who fitted in both conventional and unconventional cricket besides being one of the greatest fielders.
Explaining the inclusion of Javagal Srinath who is only their in Vengsarkar’s post 1975 XI, Bala said, “He was outstanding. His bad luck was many of his outstanding performances were in a losing cause.”
Rahul Dravid with the highest batting average of 57.46 and Anil Kumble with highest number of Test Wicket (552 wkts) are the noticeable missing players in the Indian XI.
Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Kapil Dev are only players present in all the teams picked by the former Captains.
Following are the all-time best Indian Test teams picked by the former captains:
| G R Vishwanath’s XI | Nari Contractor’s XI: |
| 1 Sunil Gavaskar | 1. Vijay Merchant (capt) |
| 2 Vijay Merchant | 2. Sunil Gavaskar |
| 3 Sachin Tendulkar | 3. Sachin Tendulkar |
| 4 Vijay Manjrekar | 4. Vijay Hazare |
| 5 MAK Pataudi | 5. Rahul Dravid |
| 6 Vinoo Mankad | 6. Vinoo Mankad |
| 7 Kapil Dev | 7. Kapil Dev |
| 8 Syed Kirmani | 8. Dattu Phadkar |
| 9 E A S Prasanna | 9. Farokh Engineer |
| 10 B S Chandrasekhar | 10. E A S Prasanna |
| 11 Mohd Nissar | 11. Subhash Gupte |
| 12th man: Eknath Solkar. |
| S Venkataraghavan’s XI | K Srikkanth’s XI: |
| 1 Sunil Gavaskar | 1 Sunil Gavaskar |
| 2 Vijay Merchant | 2 Vinoo Mankad |
| 3 Sachin Tendulkar | 3 Sachin Tendulkar |
| 4 Vijay Hazare | 4 G R Vishwanath |
| 5 G R Vishwanath/C K Nayudu | 5 Rahul Dravid/Vengsarkar |
| 6 Polly Umrigar | 6 Polly Umrigar |
| 7 Vinoo Mankad | 7 Kapil Dev |
| 8 Kapil Dev | 8 Syed Kirmani |
| 9 Syed Kirmani | 9 Bishan Singh Bedi |
| 10 Mohd Nissar | 10 Mohd Nissar |
| 11 Subhash Gupte | 11 E A S Prasanna/Chandra |
| D Vengsarkar’s XI (post-1975) | Ajit Wadekar’s XI: |
| 1 Sunil Gavaskar | 1 Sunil Gavaskar |
| 2 Sourav Ganguly | 2 Vijay Merchant |
| 3 Rahul Dravid | 3 Sachin Tendulkar |
| 4 G R Vishwanath | 4 Rahul Dravid |
| 5 Sachin Tendulkar | 5 Vijay Hazare |
| 6 Kapil Dev | 6 Kapil Dev |
| 7 Syed Kirmani | 7 Mohd Nissar |
| 8 Zaheer Khan | 8 Ramakant Desai |
| 9 Javagal Srinath | 9 Anil Kumble |
| 10 Anil Kumble | 10 E A S Prasanna |
| 11 E A S Prasanna | 11 Bishan Singh Bedi |
| 12th man: Ravi Shastri. |
| Abbas Ali Baig’s XI | Syed Kirmani’s XI: |
| 1 Sunil Gavaskar | 1 Sunil Gavaskar |
| 2 Vijay Merchant | 2 Vijay Hazare |
| 3 Rahul Dravid (captain) | 3 Mushtaq Ali |
| 4 Sachin Tendulkar | 4 C K Nayudu |
| 5 Vijay Hazare | 5 Sachin Tendulkar |
| 6 Vinoo Mankad | 6 Vinoo Mankad |
| 7 Kapil Dev | 7 Kapil Dev |
| 8 Naren Tamhane (wk) | 8 Syed Kirmani |
| 9 E A S Prasanna | 9 E A S Prasanna |
| 10 Subhash Gupte | 10 B S Chandrasekhar |
| 11 Mohd Nissar | 11 Mohd Nissar |
