Since 25 June 1932, when the Indian cricket team played their first-ever Test match, they have played 543 Test matches until December 2020. The country features a total of 296 cricketers in the longest format of the game. Very few players in each generation could stick to the format for a long time.
India has only two entries in the elite list of cricketers who have played more than 150 Test matches: Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, who ranks 1 and 2 in the list of Indian players with the most runs in Test.
This article lists the top 10 Test run-scorers among the Indian batsmen and a few key facts relevant to the table below.
| PLAYERS | MATCHES | INNS | RUNS | AVERAGE | HS | 100/50 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S TENDULKAR | 200 | 329 | 15921 | 53.78 | 248* | 51/68 |
| R DRAVID | 163 | 284 | 13265 | 52.63 | 270 | 36/63 |
| S GAVASKAR | 125 | 214 | 10122 | 51.12 | 236* | 34/45 |
| V KOHLI | 123 | 210 | 9230 | 46.85 | 254* | 30/31 |
| VVS LAXMAN | 134 | 225 | 8781 | 45.97 | 281 | 17/56 |
| V SEHWAG | 103 | 178 | 8503 | 49.43 | 319 | 23/31 |
| S GANGULY | 113 | 188 | 7212 | 42.17 | 239 | 16/35 |
| C PUJARA | 103 | 176 | 7195 | 43.60 | 206* | 19/35 |
| D VENGARSARKAR | 116 | 185 | 6868 | 42.13 | 166 | 17/35 |
| M AZHARUDDIN | 99 | 147 | 6215 | 45.03 | 199 | 22/21 |
Key Facts
Among the cricketers who have scored more than 10000 Test runs, India has 3 of them: Tendulkar, Dravid, and Sunil Gavaskar.
The former Indian batsman, Sunil Gavaskar is the first overall cricketer to reach 10K runs in Test cricket.
Two other players (not part of this list) who have more than 5000 Test runs for India are Cheteshwar Pujara and Kapil Dev (5248). Pujara will soon be in this list of 7000+ Test runs for India.
Among the current players, Ajinkya Rahane has got more than 4000 Test runs.
