England’s cricketers swap the white ball for the red and the red kit for the white, when they switch back from limited overs to Tests for the visit of India for a whopping five-match series. The first Test gets underway at Edgbaston in Birmingham on Wednesday.
England, so strong in ODIs, are a team in transition in the longer format, and are facing one of the most consistently strong teams of recent times, so it’s hard to predict whether home advantage will make them favourites or not. India certainly won’t think so.
Either way it promises to be a fascinating few weeks. Here is my quickfire stats preview of the series ahead!
Fixtures
- 1st Test – Wednesday 1st August, Edbaston, Birmingham
- 2nd Test – Thursday 9th August, Lord’s, London
- 3rd Test – Saturday 16th August, Trent Bridge, Nottingham
- 4th Test – Thursday 30th August, Rose Bowl, Southampton
- 5th Test – Saturday 7th September, The Oval, London
Team & Player Rankings
- India are ranked number one in the world in Tests, England fifth.
- India’s skipper Virat Kohli is ranked the world’s second best Test batsman
- England’s skipper Joe Root is ranked the world’s third best Test batsman
- India’s Cheteshwar Pujara is ranked the world’s sixth best Test batsman
- England’s Jimmy Anderson is ranked the world’s best Test bowler
- India’s Ravindra Jadeja is ranked the world’s second best Test bowler, and second best Test allrounder
- India’s Ravichandran Ashwin is ranked the world’s fifth best bowler and fourth best Test allrounder
- England’s Ben Stokes is ranked the world’s sixth best allrounder.
Overall Test Records
- England play their 1000th Test Match in the first game of the series. They have won 357, lost 291 and drawn 345.
- At home England have played 510 Tests – W213, L119, D178
- India have played 522 Tests – W145, L160, D216 – and one tied Test!
- Away from home, India have played 257 Tests –W46, L108, D103
Head to Head records
- The sides have played 117 Tests against each other – England 43, India 25, Draw 49
- In England, there have been 57 Tests – India winning just 6 to England’s 30, with 21 draws.
Personal Milestones/Records in sight
Alastair Cook (England)
Chef will make his 157th Test appearance, moving him into outright seventh place in the all-time world rankings, and relegating Australian Allan Border to eighth.
Cook is currently 6th in the all –time Test run-scorers list with 12,145 to his name. 256 more (a big ask in one Test admittedly, but certainly doable over the series) will see him move past Kumar Sangakkara into fifth.
Stuart Broad (England)
The Nottinghamshire man currently sits in twelfth place worldwide for Test wickets taken – with 417 scalps to his name. A five-for will see him move past the South Africa Pair of Dale Steyn and Shaun Pollock (both on 421) and into the top ten.
With the bat, Broad has seemingly been on the edge of breaking 3,000 Test runs for an eternity, but now just needs 24 runs to bring up the mark.
Joe Root (England)
England’s skipper needs just 40 runs to bring up 6.000 in Tests.
Ben Stokes (England)
Durham all-rounder looking for two wickets to notch up 100 in Tests.
Murali Vijay (India)
India’s opening batsman needs just 93 runs to mark 4,000 in Tests.
Ajinka Rahane (India)
Rahane will be looking for 107 runs to move past the 3,000 Test runs marker.
Ishant Sharma (India)
Big quick Ishant currently has 238 Test wickets in his ledger, enough for eighth place among Indians. Five wickets will see him dislodge Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and move into seventh.