Data check: As Gavaskar offers Kohli a reminder, a look at India’s Test record over the decades

Another decade of Test cricket comes to a close for India. Fittingly, perhaps, the curtain comes down on 2010s with a dominant series win at home: a world record-extending 12th on the trot.

India finished their Test match assignments for 2019 with a dominant win over Bangladesh and extended their reign at the top of the rankings.

In the post-match presentation, a jubilant India captain Virat Kohli spoke about his side’s rise over the past few seasons and was full of praise for his fast bowlers. Talking about how the bowling attack has become a fearless unit helping his side stand up to the best of challenges, Kohli said:

“Test cricket is a mental battle. We’ve learned to stand up – and it all started from Dada’s [Sourav Ganguly] team, we are carrying it forward. The belief is key and to be honest we’ve worked hard, and are reaping the rewards of it now.”

With Ganguly present at the presentation ceremony, it was perhaps understandable that Kohli, who grew up watching Test cricket in the 90s, spoke fondly of ‘Dada’s’ leadership.

But it seemed to elicit a defensive response from former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar who took exception to Kohli’s comment, arguing that India won Tests abroad when the current captain was not even born.

“The Indian captain said that this thing started in 2000 with Dada’s [Ganguly’s] team. I know Dada is the BCCI president, so maybe Kohli wanted to say nice things about him. But India were also winning in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He wasn’t born then,” Gavaskar said.

“A lot of people still think that cricket started only in the 2000s. But the Indian team won overseas in the ‘70s. The Indian team also won away in 1986. India also drew series overseas. They lost as other teams did,” he added.

Now, it’s impossible and irresponsible to compare results because the eras are like chalk and cheese in Indian cricket and it is likely that Kohli did not mean to forget the achievements of the teams in the 60s and 70s.

But Gavaskar’s comment is a chance to look back at India’s record over the years in Tests – especially away from home– and see how the evolution picked up in his era, suffered a serious dip in the 90s, and has gathered pace once again since the turn of the century.

The numbers clearly indicate that under Kohli, India are producing results in Test cricket like no previous team in the history of the game.

Every record has a starting point and and there is no doubt that Gavaskar was part of the era that finally saw India be recognised as a worthy opponent in the Test arena wherever they travelled. After the first overseas win under Ajit Wadekar’s captaincy in New Zealand back in 1968, India turned a corner. The team started to register wins away from home more often.

As the tables above show it’s been an up-and-down curve for India’s Test record over the decades but the upsurge restarted, without a doubt, in the 2000s under Ganguly.

In conclusion, Gavaskar is absolutely right in saying India started winning in Tests much before before Gangulys and Kohlis arrived on the scene. But for Kohli’s generation, it was Ganguly’s team that showed them how to compete at the highest of levels.