<P> Although cricket was introduced to India by European merchant sailors in the 18th century , and the first cricket club was established in Calcutta ( currently known as Kolkata ) in 1792 , India 's national cricket team did not play its first Test match until 25 June 1932 at Lord 's , becoming the sixth team to be granted Test cricket status . In its first fifty years of international cricket , India was one of the weaker teams , winning only 35 of the first 196 Test matches it played . From 1932 India had to wait until 1952 , almost 20 years for its first Test victory . The team , however , gained strength in the 1970s with the emergence of players such as batsmen Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath , all - rounder Kapil Dev and the Indian spin quartet of Erapalli Prasanna , Srinivas Venkataraghavan , Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Bishen Singh Bedi . </P>
when did india win their first cricket match
1952