The near-misses

CK Nayudu’s 153 (including 11 sixes, a first-class record at that point) against the touring MCC of 1926/27 led to the formation of the BCCI – but that story is best left for another day. Test cricket came very late to him. Vijay Merchant averaged 47.72 in Test cricket and a whopping 71.64 across 150 first-class matches, but played only 10 Tests in an 18-year career. The first captain to lead India to a Test win, Vijay Hazare lost some of his best years to the Second World War. As per the ICC retrospective rankings, Hazare was the second-placed batter on the Test chart in end-1952, after Len Hutton.

Many eye-witnesses rate Gundappa Viswanath as the most attractive batter they have seen. However, his average dropped to 37.64 when one excludes the 17 Tests against the Packer-depleted Australian and West Indian sides of the late 1970s. In 1983, Mohinder Amarnath became the first cricketer to score a thousand Test runs by the end of May in a calendar year. He got his runs in two series were India were thoroughly outplayed, in Pakistan and the West Indies. However, outside that season, there was little sustained Test success.

Mohinder Amarnath: India’s courageous phenom who starred in the shock of 83 – Almanack

When the Cooper and Lybrand ratings (the predecessor of the current rankings) were first introduced in 1987, Dilip Vengsarkar was the first to hold the top spot. He remained the best batter in the world for 21 months. However, he never had a Test hundred outside India and England. Mohammad Azharuddin converted more than half his Test fifties into hundreds, and played some truly astonishing innings that few could emulate. However, he had ordinary numbers in Australia, South Africa, and the West Indies.

How Dilip Vengsarkar made Lord’s his own – Almanack

In Australia in 2018/19, Cheteshwar Pujara had arguably the greatest overseas Test series by an Indian batter. At times impossible to dislodge, Pujara’s average tailed off towards the end. There was a time when Ajinkya Rahane used to boast of one of the best Test overseas averages among Indians. Unfortunately, his Test average has dropped to 38.46 and he might not get another chance to improve on that. Rishabh Pant may end up challenging Andy Flower and Adam Gilchrist and end up being the greatest ever Test wicketkeeper-batter, while Yashasvi Jaiswal’s exceptional start deserves a mention.

Rishabh Pant is already India's greatest Test keeper-batter, and he has Gilchrist in his sights

The top six, however, are a cut above the others.

6. Virender Sehwag – 8,856 runs at 49.34, HS: 319, 23 hundreds

Sehwag struck at 82 in Test cricket while averaging 49.34. As an opener, those numbers read 83 and 50.04. In the 5,000-run-as-Test-openers club, only four have better averages (two of whom are sub-51), and no one else struck at even 71. With the same 5,000-run cut-off, he is Test cricket’s quickest scorer across all batting positions. There was a time when he held the three highest Test scores for India (he still holds three of the top four).

True, much of that was in the batting-heavy decade, the 2000s. Since the 1950s, the global batting average in the 2000s (32.02) is the highest. But then, to produce results in that era, the Sehwag brand of batting was needed to give time to a unit that went in with four bowlers.

Kumar Sangakkara’s titans of cricket: Virender Sehwag

So why is he not in the top five? The overseas numbers do not hold up. Averages of 20 in New Zealand, 27.80 in England, 25.46 in South Africa do not offset the two magnificent hundreds in Australia (though the 195 in 2003/04 was against a depleted attack) or the astonishing record in Asia.

5. VVS Laxman – 8,781 runs at 45.97, HS: 281, 17 hundreds

Laxman will always have that 281 – not only a national record at that point but an innings of supreme calibre against an all-time great attack after following on. The greatest Test innings by an Indian? Almost certainly.

But there was so much more to Laxman than that one innings. The consecutive innings that sealed epic chases for India in consecutive Tests in 2010, at Colombo and Mohali. Or the two classics that secured India’s first two wins in South Africa. Or three tons in three consecutive innings in Sydney. One can go on. And the career record includes 25 innings at 28.54 as opener, a position he was never comfortable with. Take them out, and the average reads 48.47.

VVS Laxman: Of ‘captivating splendour’ – Almanack

Why is Laxman not in the top four? Partly because his numbers are boosted by the batting era (the same as Sehwag’s), and partly because the top four were simply better. On another person’s list, he could have been fourth. It is a close call.

4. Virat Kohli – 9,230 runs at 46.85, HS: 254*, 30 hundreds

Had he not gone into the post-2020 slump, Kohli would perhaps have broken into the top three or even higher. Indeed, he ended 2019 with 7,202 runs at 54.97. Then came the decline: there were only three more hundreds over a period when he averaged only 30.72.

Virat Kohli: A man of adamant ambition, is he already India’s finest? – Almanack

Towards the end of this phase, Kohli turned things around in ODIs, but the mojo did not return in Test cricket. The seven hundreds in Australia get their due weight, as does the Renaissance series in England in 2018. But perhaps even more impressive was his record (an average of 49.50 across 18 innings) in South Africa across some very low-scoring series. No Asian batter has matched his record there.

Kohli edges out Laxman – but not by much. They have identical averages, but Kohli batted in a more difficult era.

3. Rahul Dravid – 13,288 runs at 52.31, HS: 270, 36 hundreds

Dravid made more than five thousand runs at home and more than seven thousand away – and averaged more than fifty in both. That alone should secure his spot in the top three.

Rahul Dravid: A model of grace, a pillar at No.3 – Almanack

Of course, there are weaknesses. The poor numbers in South Africa and Sri Lanka, for example. Or the numbers – other than that 180 – against Australia when Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne played. But then, there was also 68.80 in England, 63.83 in New Zealand, and 78.57 in Pakistan and – they were still a strong side when he started off – 65.69 in the West Indies. Even if one makes adjustments for the era, these are absurd numbers.

2. Sunil Gavaskar – 10,122 runs at 51.14, HS: 236*, 34 hundreds

When Gavaskar debuted, Polly Umrigar held the Indian record for most Test runs (3,631) and hundreds (12). When Gavaskar retired, he was 2,000 runs and five hundreds clear of anyone else in all Test cricket. It is difficult to argue with a career like that.

Sunil Gavaskar: Cricket in the blood – Almanack

There were caveats, of course. The 13 hundreds against the West Indies are stuff of legends, but several of them came against weak or depleted attacks. Three of his five hundreds in Australia came in the Packer era, and the other two against a greenhorn attack. But then, he mastered the Pakistan fast bowlers even when India were stunned by reverse-swing; he dominated spin on wretched tracks (even against the Indian spinners in domestic cricket); and he did all that while opening with 18 different partners.

More than anything, he established Indian batting on the world map of cricket.

1. Sachin Tendulkar – 15,921 runs at 53.78, HS: 248*, 51 hundreds

Despite furious competition from Brian Lara, Tendulkar kept flirting with the top spot in the ICC batting rankings during the second half of the 1990s (and a bit on either side). But perhaps more astonishing was he regaining the top spot in the twilight of his career, in 2010.

There have been Indian batters with loftier peaks, greater purple patches. Tendulkar, after all, never scored 500 runs in a series or 250 in an innings. What makes him stand out is his consistency over a 24-year career. He played his 200 Test matches across ten countries – and averaged 40 in each of them.

Sachin Tendulkar: India’s divine phenomenon – Almanack

Tendulkar was making hundreds in England, Australia, and South Africa in his teens. He was taking on Dale Steyn in South Africa in his late 30s. Time and again over a 24-year career he overcame a dip in form to reclaim the top spot.

He outlasted everyone.