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Indian Cricket Team Depth: List of Top 75 Players of Indian Cricket

by | Feb 6, 2021 | India, Miscellaneous, T20 World Cup, World XIs - With Twists

Indian cricket climbed new heights at the Gabba. With a 2nd or 3rd string team. One of the greatest sporting stories of all time.

During that series, Australia announced a Test & T20I squad that would have been played at the same time (before Australia cancelled the South Africa tour of course).

These two events got me thinking—Can India field two Test XIs at the same time without overlapping players? How about an additional ODI & T20I team?

Today’s Twist

Build FOUR Indian National Cricket Teams Roster: 2 Test teams, an ODI, and a T20I XI so that (1) each team can field a team (wicketkeeper & 5 bowling options), and (2) a player is not repeated in any of the lists.

The Catch

  • Would you pick Virat Kohli for the Test team, ODI, or the T20I? Bumrah?
  • Can you make all 4 teams balanced? The goal is that each team is just as good and competitive on the international stage. The ODI & T20I teams should be good enough for the World Cups and the Test teams for the World Test Championship.
  • With so many spinners in the Indian cricket circuit and given recent history, does Kuldeep Yadav find a place in any of these XI?

India Cricket Teams

*uncapped player

Test Team 1

  1. 1. Mayank Agarwal
  2. 2. Shubman Gill
  3. 3. Cheteshwar Pujara
  4. 4. Virat Kohli (C)
  5. 5. Rishabh Pant (WK)
  6. 6. Hardik Pandya
  7. 7. Ravindra Jadeja
  8. 8. Ravichandran Ashwin
  9. 9. Ishant Sharma
  10. 10. Jasprit Bumrah
  11. 11. Kuldeep Yadav

Test Team 2

  1. 1. Prithvi Shaw
  2. 2. Abhimanyu Easwaran*
  3. 3. Hanuma Vihari
  4. 4. Ajinkya Rahane (C)
  5. 5. Karun Nair
  6. 6. Wriddhiman Saha (WK)
  7. 7. Bhuvneshwar Kumar
  8. 8. Umesh Yadav
  9. 9. Mohammed Siraj
  10. 10. Navdeep Saini
  11. 11. Shahbaz Nadeem

Indian Cricket Limited Overs Teams:

ODI XI

  • 1. Shikhar Dhawan
  • 2. Rohit Sharma (C)
  • 3. Sanju Samson (WK)
  • 4. Shreyas Iyer
  • 5. Kedar Jadhav
  • 6. Vijay Shankar
  • 7. Axar Patel
  • 8. Deepak Chahar
  • 9. Mohammed Shami
  • 10. Khaleel Ahmed
  • 11. Yuzvendra Chahal

T20I XI

  1. 1. KL Rahul (WK)
  2. 2. Ishan Kishan*
  3. 3. Suryakumar Yadav*
  4. 4. Manish Pandey
  5. 5. Shivam Dube
  6. 6. Dinesh Karthik (C)
  7. 7. Krunal Pandya
  8. 8. Shardul Thakur
  9. 9. Varun Chakravarthy
  10. 10. Washington Sundar
  11. 11. Thangarasu Natarajan

India’s most successful Test skipper and the stand-in skipper in Australia are given the Test reins, while the most successful IPL captain & captain of the victorious Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy have been given limited overs captaincy duties. We made sure the limited overs team had plenty of 6th bowling options, an area Indian selection has recently struggled with.

Extended List of Prospects

These are just the 44 that are ready for the international level. Just like IPL 2020 showed, we can further create a squad just of the Emerging Players. Here is an extended list of players for the next decade.

Fringe Players: 45. Rahul Chahar, 46. KS Bharat (WK), 47. Kartik Tyagi, 48. Priyank Panchal (recent standby/India A players)

Youngsters to Watch Out: 49. Devdutt Padikkal, 50. Ruturaj Gaikwad, 51. Priyam Garg, 52. Abdul Samad, 53. Abhishek Sharma, 54. Kamlesh Nagarkoti, 55. Shivam Mavi, 56. Ravi Bishnoi, 57. Arshdeep Singh, 58. Prasidh Krishna, 59. Mayank Markande, 60. Ishan Porel, 61. Shahbaz Ahmed, 62. Riyan Parag, 63. Sarfaraz Khan, 64. Nitish Rana, 65. Harshal Patel, 66. Deepak Hooda, 67. Narayan Jagadeesan, 68. R Sai Kishore

Others: 69. Jayant Yadav, 70. Jayadev Unadkat, 71. Siddharth Kaul, 72. Dhawal Kulkarni, 73. Sandeep Sharma, 74. Mandeep Singh (India caps, have age on their side, but out of favor & unlikely to get back in anytime soon)

*Note: Murali Vijay, Ambati Rayudu, and Amit Mishra were not considered because they are almost at the end of the careers and are out of the favor with the selectors.

Conclusion

Problem of plenty for Team India.

We have all criticized Indian cricket selectors at some point in time, but we can clearly see it is difficult to give every player an extended run. Gone are the days where we can find players who play 2 or 3 formats for more than a decade. Virat Kohli maybe the last of his breed in India.

Next week, we will do a similar exercise with the England cricket team. Their limited overs depth is quite something, and they are a rising force in Test cricket as well.

What will your Indian XIs be? What do you think of Indian cricket right now? COMMENT BELOW! Would love to know your thoughts!

If you like this, check out the rest of our World XIs with Twists Here – Best Fielding XI, Best Commentators XI, and much more!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) – Indian Cricket Team Squad Depth

How many Indian cricketers are there?

As of 2023, at least 75 Indian cricketers are fighting for a place in the national team. Today the Indian national cricket team player list is one of envy with its massive depth.

How many teams can Indian cricket team field?

At least four professional cricket side can be fielded with the talent of Indian cricket team depth. These includes a separate squad for Test matches, ODI tournaments, and T20 series.

© Copyright @Nitesh Mathur and Broken Cricket Dreams, LLC, 2023. Contact us at bcd@brokencricketdreams.com. Originally published on 02/03/2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Broken Cricket Dreams with appropriate and specific direction to the original content (i.e. linked to the exact post/article).

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