Cricket History: India’s First Asia Cup XI Records 41-Year Survival

India’s first Asia Cup XI from 1984 remains the longest surviving team in the nation’s tournament history, completing 41+ years together.

Asia Cup Cricket History (Image Source: Google)

India played its first match in the Rothmans Asia Cup at Sharjah on 8th April 1984, against Sri Lanka and won by 10 wickets (with 170 balls remaining). What’s so unique about India’s playing XI of this match?

The India playing XI consisted of Surinder Khanna, Ghulam Parkar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sunil Gavaskar (c), Sandeep Patil, Ravi Shastri,

Kirti Azad, Roger Binny, Madan Lal, Manoj Prabhakar and Chetan Sharma. All these players are still with us, and this playing XI is India’s longest surviving Asia Cup team. Till 30th August 2025, this team has survived for 41 years and 144 days and we pray for a long life for all the players.

Some trivia about the chronological records particularly with Asia Cup:

The longest surviving Asia Cup playing XI is of Sri Lanka which played in the first match of the 1984 tournament on 6th April against
Pakistan. This team has so far survived for 41 years and 146 days.

Among big teams, India and Sri Lanka have so far not lost even a single player from the Asia Cup teams.

The Asia Cup players lost to the other big teams:

1. Abdul Qadir of Pakistan – He was the first Asia Cup player to depart. He was in the playing Pakistan XI of the 6th of April 1984 match against Sri Lanka. Pakistan has not lost any other Asia Cup player.

2. Samiur Rahman of Bangladesh- He was the second Asia Cup player to depart. He was in the playing Bangladesh XI of the 31st of March 1986 match against Pakistan.

3. Sheikh Salahuddin of Bangladesh- He was the third Asia Cup player to depart. He was in the playing Bangladesh XI of the 16th of July 1997 match against Pakistan.

4. Manzarul Islam Rana of Bangladesh- He was the fourth and the last Asia Cup player to depart. He was in the playing Bangladesh XI of the 21st of July 2004 match against India.

The India playing XI of the Rothmans Asia Cup match on 8th April 1984 which has survived for 41 years and 144 days, still doesn’t hold the record for the longest surviving India playing XI from the ODIs.This record belongs to the playing XI of the 1st December 1983 match at Indore against West Indies, which was won by the visitors by 8 wickets (with 10 balls remaining). This playing XI consisted of Sunil Gavaskar, Kris Srikkanth, Mohinder Amarnath, Arun Lal, Ashok Malhotra, Roger Binny, Kapil Dev (c), Ravi Shastri, Madan Lal, Syed Kirmani and Balwinder Sandhu. This team has survived for 41 years 272 days so far.

*The India ODI playing XI, which survived the longest, was the playing XI of the 9th of June 1979 match at Birmingham in the Prudential World Cup against West Indies which India lost by 9 wickets (with 51 balls remaining). This playing XI consisted of Sunil Gavaskar, Anshuman Gaekwad, Dilip Vengsarkar, Gundappa Viswanath, Brijesh Patel, Mohinder Amarnath, Kapil Dev, Surinder Khanna, Karsan Ghavri, Srinivas Venkataraghavan (c) and
Bishan Bedi. This team survived for 44 years 136 days and then on 23rd October 2023 lost Bishan Bedi.

*The record for the longest surviving playing XI in ODIs belongs to the Australia team which played in the first ever ODI on 5th January 1971 vs England at Melbourne and Australia won by 5 wickets (with 42 balls remaining). This playing XI consisted of Bill Lawry (c), Keith Stackpole, Ian Chappell, Doug Walters, Ian Redpath, Greg Chappell, Rod Marsh, Ashley Mallett, Graham McKenzie, Alan Connolly and Alan Thomson. This team survived for 50 years 297 days and then on 29th October 2021, lost Ashley Mallett. This is the only ODI playing XI which survived for 50 years.

Note: All age records are correct upto 30th August 2025.