Number's Game - England in India

England is touring India since 1933. In the 88 years history of England’s tour to India, they have played 15 test series along with one solo test in 1980 as part of the Golden Jubilee celebration of BCCI. Out of these 15 series, India won 7 including the last series, England won 4, their latest series win came in 2012 and 4 series ended in a draw. Here are some key numbers and Trivia related to India-England test matches on Indian soil before their upcoming 4-match series in February-March.

1 – India’s first-ever test match on home soil was against the touring English team under the captaincy of Douglas Jardine. Just the previous year, India made their debut at Lords’ and it was England’s turn to make a return visit. The fascinating first test of the 3-match series was played in the Bombay Gymkhana ground and gain countrywide interest. Since then, there are no more test matches on this ground, and it remains one of the few test grounds with just 1 test match.

2 – The same test match saw the first instance of two debutants scoring centuries on the same test. Bryan Valentine of England and Lala Amarnath of India made centuries in their debut test match. Amarnath’s century was the first test century for the Indians and resulted in great celebration among fans. Till now there is only two more instance of two debutants scoring century in the same test match.

3 – Jumping the clock ahead by 52 years and we have another young debutant setting records during an India-England series. The stylish Mohammed Azharuddin of Hyderabad scored a debut hundred at Eden Gardens, Kolkata and followed it with two more hundred in next two test matches at Chennai and Kanpur. This is the only instance of a player scoring hundreds in his first three test matches.

Source: Internet

5 – The highest number of centuries scored in the India-England series in India. Like many other batting reports, Alastair Cook holds this record as his five centuries included a massive 190 at Eden Gardens in 2012. Among current players, Cheteshwar Pujara has 4 hundred and can break this record in the upcoming series.

13 – Ian Botham holds the record for best-ever bowling figure in an India-England test match at India. During the 1980 Golden Jubilee test match, Botham took 6/58 and 7/48 in two innings and finished the match with 13 for 106. He also scored a hundred to take them to a 10-wicket victory.

64 – The highest number of wickets taken by a bowler in India-England test matches at India. This record belongs to the Indian master leg spinner BS Chandrasekhar who has played 14 test matches against England at home from 1964 to 1977. As expected, the top five positions in the wickets list are occupied by spinners with Derek Underwood being the lone Englishman. Among the current players, Ravichandran Ashwin is in the fifth position with 42 wickets and will hope to be near the top of the tree by the end of this series.

303 – The highest Individual innings played during India-England Tests. Karun Nair remains an enigma for Indian cricket fans who scored a triple-century in just his third test at Chennai during England’s last tour of India. But Nair only played three more test matches since then with minimal success and currently nowhere near the Indian national team due to indifferent performances in domestic cricket and IPL. Interesting 81% of his total international runs (374) was scored during that one innings.

387 – India recorded their best-ever fourth Innings chase during the Chennai Test in 2008. The test match was played just after the ‘26/11 Mumbai attack’ once the English team made a return to India and had lots of emotions attached to it. The emotions reached their peak when India completed an unlikely chase on the fifth day thanks to a Sachin Tendulkar unbeaten century and handy contributions from Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, and Gautam Gambhir.

477 – England achieved an unwanted world record during their last tour when they scored 477 runs in their first innings of the fifth test at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai and still lost the test match by an innings and 75 runs. This is highest team total in the history of the game for a team to lose the match by an innings.

759 – Chennai and Kolkata remain two Indian venues that
keep producing various records. In the test match where Karun Nair scored his unbeaten 303, India finished with a team total of 759/7 declared, their highest ever test score at any venue against any opposition. Along with Nair, KL Rahul also scored 199 as the Karnataka duo contributed more than 500 runs of that total.

1331 – Sunil Gavaskar is leading the run tally with 1,331 runs against England on Indian soil, followed by Alastair Cook and Gundappa Viswanath as the other two players with thousand plus runs. Among the current players Virat Kohli (843) and Cheteshwar Pujara (839) are in a race to reach the 1000 runs followed by Joe Root on 584. If Root reached the 1000 runs mark in India in this series that will not be good news for India.a