India's biggest international wins by format

Indi
India have won two Tests by an innings and 239 runs

The Indian cricket team have had a very positive few years. A strong performance in the Champions Trophy, where they reached the final, showed the depth of their limited overs set up and they enjoyed successful home Test series against New Zealand, Australia, and England.

Their most recent assignment was the Nidahas Trophy, a tri-series with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which they won with a severely weakened squad. Along the way, they have notched up some sizeable wins. Indeed, their largest T20 victory came in the past year and India also managed to equal their biggest Test win. This article looks at India's largest ever wins across all three formats.


Test Cricket

Bangladesh vs India in May 2007: India won by an innings and 239 runs

India vs Sri Lanka in November 2017: India won by an innings and 239 runs.

India have a very solid track record in Test cricket. They have won seven Tests by a margin of ten wickets. Their largest Test win, when not winning by an innings, was when they beat South Africa by a huge margin of 337 runs in 2015 at Delhi.

Ajinkya Rahane scored hundreds in both innings of that Test, with Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja each bagging a five-for. This, however, is still not India's largest ever Test win.

Incredibly, India have won two Test matches by an innings and 239 runs. They beat Bangladesh by that margin in 2007, in a very one-sided match played at Dhaka. This was at a time, though, when the Bangladesh cricket team were struggling and were not that strong side that they are today.

Nevertheless, it is still India's joint largest Test victory of all time. The coincidences between India's two joint highest Test wins are incredible, not only did they win by the same margin, but India declared on both matches on 610.

However, against Bangladesh India batted first and it was a class batting display. Both openers, Dinesh Karthik and Wasim Jaffer, got hundreds as did Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar batting at No. 3 and No. 4.

Bangladesh struggled with the bat and were made to follow-on, after being bowled out for just 118 inside 38 overs. Indian seamer Zaheer Khan picked up a five-wicket haul and was supported by Anil Kumble who picked up three wickets.

The second innings was a similar story as the hosts only managed 253, with Zaheer picking up a wicket on the first ball of the innings. The wickets were shared among the Indian bowlers evenly, with Sachin Tendulkar even picking up a couple. This concluded what was at the time India's largest Test victory, but it was matched ten years later.

Sri Lanka won the toss in the Nagpur Test but only managed 205 in the first innings. Dinesh Chandimal top-scored with 57, while Ashwin picked up four wickets and Jadeja three. India only needed to bat once, courtesy of a vintage Virat Kohli double hundred, supported by centuries from Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Rohit Sharma.

The Indian batsmen looked very comfortable on that surface and they eventually decided to declare after amassing a huge 610 for 6.

Sri Lanka struggled once again in their second innings, succumbing to a measly 166 all out. The visiting side had four ducks and their batting card made for grim reading, Chandimal the only batsman to cross fifty in that innings.

Ashwin picked four as rest of the wickets were fairly evenly shared between India's bowling attack and they wrapped up a huge win, which remains the joint highest Test win for their nation.

ODI Cricket

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Kenya were the victims of a humiliating

Bermuda vs India in March 2007: India won by 257 runs

India vs Kenya in October 2001: India won by ten wickets with 231 balls remaining

India's largest ODI win, in terms of runs won by, was against Bermuda in the 2007 ODI World Cup. In that match, famed for Dwayne Leverock's thrilling catch, India racked up 413 in the first innings courtesy of a Virender Sehwag hundred. An 89 from Sourav Ganguly and an 83 from Yuvraj Singh took India to that huge total and Bermuda never really stood a chance. Bermuda were then skittled for just 156, with Ajit Agarkar and Anil Kumble each taking three wickets. It could have been a lot worse, but David Hemp scored a brilliant 76* for Bermuda while wickets tumbled all around him. Five of their players were dismissed without scoring and India's winning margin of 257 runs is their highest ever.

However, India's most emphatic win was against Kenya in 2001 in a match played in South Africa. India have won ten ODIs by six wickets and this match was won with the most balls remaining by far. Interestingly, it was another time the duo of Agarkar-Kumble did the damage as they took seven wickets between them. Tony Suji top-scored for Kenya with a mere 18* and they folded for just 90 all out. It took just 11.3 overs for India to chase down Kenya's total. Openers Virender Sehwag and Deep Dasgupta reached their target unscathed and finished with scores of 55* and 24* respectively. It was a huge victory for India and their most clinical of all time in ODI cricket.

T20 Cricket

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India have never won a T20I by more than 100 runs

India vs Sri Lanka in December 2017: India won by 93 runs

India have scored over 200 runs in a T20 on several occasions. However, their largest T20 victory came when they only scored 180 runs in the first innings which is what you may not have expected. This historic match was played at Cuttack and Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to field first. Lokesh Rahul got India off to a fantastic start with his quick 61 before MS Dhoni and Manish Pandey produced two great cameos to take India up to 180.

Sri Lanka started decently, but after Upul Tharanga was caught behind off Yuzvendra Chahal, Sri Lanka collapsed from 39/1 to 87 all out. Their top three batsmen all got into double digits, but their middle order scores after that read 1, 4, 1, 3 and 7 with Chahal doing most of the damage. Hardik Pandya, who opened the bowling, ended with solid figures of 4-0-29-3, but it was mainly Chahal's 4-0-23-4 that was responsible for this rout of Sri Lanka. As a result, Sri Lanka ended on 87 all out, handing India a huge 93 run victory, which is their largest ever T20 win.

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