when did india play first cricket test match
India national cricket team Although cricket was introduced to India by European merchant sailors in the 18th century, and the first cricket club was established in Calcutta (currently known as Kolkata) in 1792, India's national cricket team did not play its first Test match until 25 June 1932 at Lord's, becoming the sixth team to be granted Test cricket status. In its first fifty years of international cricket, India was one of the weaker teams, winning only 35 of the first 196 Test matches it played. From 1932 India had to wait until 1952, almost 20 years for its first Test victory. The team, however, gained strength in the 1970s with the emergence of players such as batsmen Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath, all-rounder Kapil Dev and the Indian spin quartet of Erapalli Prasanna, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Bishen Singh Bedi.
Indian cricket team in South Africa in 2017–18 The India cricket team toured South Africa in January and February 2018[1][2] to play three Tests, six One Day Internationals (ODIs) and three Twenty20 International (T20I) matches.[3][4] In January 2017, Cricket South Africa (CSA) revealed that this tour would replace the scheduled visit by Sri Lanka due to costs and scheduling congestion.[5] The Test series was played for the Freedom Trophy, with South Africa winning the trophy following victories in the first two Tests.[6] South Africa went on to win the Test series 2–1.[7] It was the first Test series of three matches or more in which all 40 wickets fell in each match of the series.[8] With India's win the third Test, they retained the number one place in the ICC Test Championship, taking an unassailable lead before the April 2018 cut-off date for next season's rankings.[9]