Among the top three run-getters in each Ranji Trophy season from 1977-78 to 2016-17 – 84 players in all – only 33 players managed to figure in at least one Test. As many as 51 did not go on to play Test cricket. Among these 51, those who topped run tallies more than once are tabulated in Table 1.
Table 1
| Name | No. of times in Top 3 | Primary Ranji Team |
| M.V. Sridhar | 3 | Hyderabad |
| Yere Goud | 2 | Railways |
| V. Sivaramakrishnan | 2 | Tamil Nadu |
| Surendra Bhave | 2 | Maharashtra |
| Surinder Khanna | 2 | Delhi |
| Robin Uthappa | 2 | Karnataka |
| Amit Pagnis | 2 | Mumbai |
| Amrjit Kaypee | 2 | Punjab |
Among the 33 players who went on to play Test cricket, there are the familiar names who were mainstays. Table 2 lists the players who were among the toppers in the Ranji Trophy and the total number of Tests they played.
Table 2
| S. No | Name | Tests | No. of times in top 3 |
| 1 | Sachin Tendulkar | 200 | 1 |
| 2 | V.V.S. Laxman | 134 | 1 |
| 3 | Sunil Gavaskar | 125 | 1 |
| 4 | Dilip Vengsarkar | 116 | 2 |
| 5 | Gautam Gambhir | 58 | 2 |
| 6 | Cheteshwar Pujara | 51 | 2 |
| 7 | Murali Vijay | 51 | 1 |
| 8 | Anshuman Gaekwad | 40 | 1 |
| 9 | Ajinkya Rahane | 40 | 2 |
| 10 | Wasim Jaffer | 31 | 1 |
There were other players who did not get to play too many Tests despite topping Ranji charts (on multiple occasions in some cases).
Table 3 is sorted by the number of times batsmen, who played relatively fewer Tests, topped the Ranji charts.
| Sno | Player Name | Tests | No. of times in top 3 |
| 1 | Raman Lamba | 4 | 5 |
| 2 | Hrishikesh Kanitkar | 2 | 4 |
| 3 | Ajay Sharma | 1 | 3 |
| 4 | Ghulam Parkar | 1 | 3 |
| 5 | S. Badrinath | 2 | 3 |
| 6 | Vinod Kambli | 17 | 3 |
| 7 | Brijesh Patel | 21 | 3 |
| 8 | Abhinav Mukund | 7 | 2 |
| 9 | Akash Chopra | 10 | 2 |
| 10 | W.V. Raman | 11 | 2 |
The question to be asked is whether Ranji Trophy top performers got a decent run in Test cricket after their excellence in the domestic season. A detailed look (bar-chart: Graduation Measure) at the percentage of Tests played by the 33 players in the three years after topping the runs tally is one indication of recognition by selectors.
Players such as Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar had their best Ranji Trophy seasons mid-career (explaining how they played in all Tests subsequent to the domestic season). Others such as V.V.S. Laxman had to restart their careers after having to prove their mettle in domestic cricket. Laxman scored the highest ever runs in a Ranji season in 1999-00 (1,415) to earn his spot in the Indian team soon after and went on to retain it as his own.
Current regulars such as Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteswar Pujara, Murali Vijay had to wait a while before an extended run.
Surprisingly, Rahul Dravid doesn’t feature in this list – he never finished in the Ranji top 3, despite averaging close to 62 in First Class cricket before making his Test debut in 1996. His best Ranji season was in 1997-98 when he averaged 73.1 while scoring 731 runs and helping Karnataka lift the trophy.
A decadal break-up of these numbers including those of batsmen who never played Test cricket is done in Table 4.
Table 4
| Decadal | Total no. of players | Selected | Not Selected |
| 1977-87 | 30 | 17 | 13 |
| 1987-97 | 30 | 17 | 13 |
| 1997-07 | 30 | 11 | 19 |
| 2007-17 | 30 | 15 | 15 |
The numbers for the decade between 1997 and 2007 are quite stark – fewer Ranji Trophy top scorers were selected to play for India than other decades. A stable middle-order featuring Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, and Ganguly made it difficult for batsmen to break through except in the opening positions (Virender Sehwag was moved up the order for the same reason).
On the bowling front, spinners have dominated the wickets tally in the last four decades. Pacers were more dominant in the last decade when pitches were deliberately made friendlier for them. A total of 87 bowlers finished in the top 3 of the wickets tally in the last four decades and 36 made it to the Indian squad.
However, in only eight of 30 top-three instances in the last decade did the bowler play at least one Test. The numbers seem to confirm the thinking in cricketing circles that bowlers are often picked on potential (pace, height, swing, turn etc) and qualitative reasons rather than strictly quantitative reasons.
A detailed analysis of bowlers will appear in the coming weeks.
