Indian batsmen who were at the top of the rankings for the highest period

#2 Sunil Gavaskar (December 1978 to June 1980)

Sunil Gavaskar displaced Viv Richards to grab the top spot

He was arguably one of the finest batsmen the cricketing world has ever seen and his reign at the top was quite a long one too.He became the No.1 batsman for the first time on December 1,1978 toppling the great Vivian Richards who at that time was busy playing in the World Series.

Richards once again regained the numero uno spot in June 1980, seven months after coming back to international cricket.Gavaskar never reached the pinnacle again. His batting form also dipped after the 19-month reign at the top and he slid down the rankings.

The Mumbai batsman has scored over 10000 runs in Test cricket from 1971 to 1987. During that period too he had amassed 3092 runs from 108 ODIs. By the time he retired, he was considered to be the best India, years later his records were surpassed by a certain Sachin Tendulkar.