Here are the 10 most brilliant Indian batsmen I have seen. I would have liked to see KS Ranjitsinhji, his cousin KS Duleepsinhji, and the Nawab of Pataudi junior, all of whom won Blues and played county cricket, and Vijay Merchant who founded the Bombay batting school while averaging 71 in first-class cricket, second only for Sir Donald Bradman.
But I’ve seen the rest and I think Yashasvi Jaiswal just entered this elite company. Indian batsmanship is different from England or Australia: less leading elbow and forearm, more square of the wicket. More wristy. More stylish.
Here are Telegraph Sport’s top 10…
10. Yashasvi Jaiswal
The only lefthander in this list, although the daring Risabh Pant will hopefully be included once he recovers from his car accident. Has anyone ever had faster wrists than India’s new opener? He could certainly spin a bat even faster than Ravi Jadeja does if he reaches 50.
Using those wrists in the third Test, he equaled the world Test record of 12 sixes in a single innings. He already seems to be a complete Test batsman on Indian pitches, with two hundreds already. The big test will come when the ball flies around his ears in Australia next winter, but he appears to have the hand-eye coordination to deal with it.
9. Gundappa Viswanath
A ‘fish come true’, as it was announced in India in the 1970s. Under six feet he could saw off anything outside the stump, of any length, whether square or late.
England had three in-fielders and a sweeper for his cut in Madras during the 1981-82 Test and he still continued to drill the field to achieve the highest innings yet for India against England; 222. Overall delightful as a batsman and person, and at his best when the West Indies were at their best.
8. Rahul Dravid
Very compact, solid and defensive for much of his career, but he flourished – at least in English eyes – when he taught us how to play spin. Do not work every offbreak “with the spin” to the leg side where the majority of the field players are located. Instead, you hit it straight, back in the direction it came from after throwing, for example by knocking off the front or back foot through extra cover.
Dravid gracefully redefined our understanding of playing against spin and is therefore ahead of another bright number three, Dilip Vengsarkar.
7. VVS Laxman
A player with a great innings – his 281 in the follow-on against Australia in Calcutta was perhaps the greatest of all time in Tests, or the equal of Ben Stokes’s 135* at Headingley – rather than a great player, perhaps because he happened to be good into hitting instead of obsessing over it.
What brought out the best in him was the ball bouncing at hip height: those steel wrists then sliced or smashed the ball down the side. Three of his 17 Test hundreds were made when the ball bounced around waist height in Sydney; unfortunately none in England, where it was roaming around.
6. Rohit Sharma
A feast for the eyes as a Sunil Gavaskar-esque embodiment of orthodox strokeplay, as in his sumptuous 131 in the third Test of this series. No trigger movements other than flexing his toes; no stabbing to the chest where the back shoulder takes over.
He has so much time that he cuts off the front foot, even though stroke play – really stroking, never trying to hit the ball too hard – has yet to be fully fulfilled in Tests. His best format has been the 50-over international: he was the first person to score two double centuries in ODIs, and has hit three out of eight so far.
5. Mohammed Azharuddin
In 1984, this spindly student strolled out and scored a century against England in each of his first three Tests. In English eyes it was a runaway geometry: the ball always disappeared perpendicular to where it came from. And the straight ball just as likely disappeared via a point or square leg.
During his hundred in Chennai on a glassy surface, against two good English spinners Pat Pocock and Phil Edmonds, Azhar was almost giddy at how easy batting could be. His wrists must have been made of tungsten. According to the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation, dark times followed, but his percussion was breathtaking.
4. Sachin Tendulkar
Never forget how strong he was: to make up for his size at school, he beat everyone in arm wrestling. This strength, and perhaps the best of all cricketing brains, enabled him to be the first Indian batsman to conquer Australia, as, intent on dominating their pace attack, he stood on his back foot and flew away. His century at Perth in 1992 was one of the modern marvels and other early innings were dazzling to watch.
The later Tendulkar was more focused on accumulation and on numbers, such as reaching 100 international centuries – which ultimately came in a match-losing innings against Bangladesh – and 200 Tests, which he eventually did: not that exciting to watch.
3. Virat Kohli
The strongest of the Indian Test batsmen, one suspects, and consequently a less aesthetic or virile style than most. His extra-cover drive, his signature shot, is more physical than Joe Root’s, to which he adds a flick of his wrists in the final flourish.
Kohli is also the most charismatic Indian cricketer, the most expressive, the most emotional – which doesn’t make him a great captain tactically – and also the fastest between wickets. His best format, you’d have to say, is the ODI – 50 centuries, and an average of 58, at almost a run a ball – for all his Test exploits in Australia.
2. Sunil Gavaskar
No right-hander was more pleasing to the eye than Gavaskar in full flow. In any case, until recently he was the man who opened the batting with Sir Jack Hobbs for the World XI vs. Mars. He was similar to Rohit Sharma in that he was an embodiment of orthodoxy, except he kept the ball on the ground.
However, sometimes he switched to negative mode and did not use his gifts: most infamously his unbeaten 36 off 174 balls against England in the 1975 World Cup. But at his best he was perfection, especially when I saw his century with 94 balls in New Delhi against the West Indies, equaling Bradman’s record of 29 Test hundreds, when his driving on both sides of the wicket was magical.
1.Virender Sehwag
He raised the bar by scoring faster than any specialist batsman in Test history – five runs per over or 82 per 100 balls. He produced masterpieces such as 319 off 304 balls against South Africa and 293 off 254 against Sri Lanka, showing the bowler his stumps and using his hands, forearms and wrists to hit straight balls offside like never before. In England he did not succeed: in fact he scored only five Test hundreds outside Asia, where he averaged 57 while running like an express train.
But the deciding factor for me was a Test in Bangalore against England. Ashley Giles was bowling over the wicket and into the Rough, and while Tendulkar was batless and kicking the ball away, Sehwag ran down the field to hit it inside out over extra cover. Does each stroke involve the coordination of so many muscles? ? – or anywhere else he felt like doing. Genius.