TOUR OF SRI LANKA ▪️ ENGLAND WON THE SERIES 2-0
| 14-18 January | 1 England 421 & 76-3 beat Sri Lanka 135 & 359 by seven wickets | Galle |
| 22-25 January | 2 England 344 & 164-4 beat Sri Lanka 381 & 126 by six wickets | Galle |
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ENGLAND captain Joe Root could not have wished to be in better form ahead of a four-Test tour of India which will begin with him earning his 100th Test cap.
Root comes into the series having hit 228 and 186 in the successive matches against Sri Lanka last month as England enjoyed a convincing 2-0 series win despite batting last on both occasions.
The victories extended England's run to four consecutive series successes since the drawn Ashes contest in 2019.
They also meant England are now unbeaten in their last 10 Tests under the captaincy of Root, which is by far his best sequence of results since he took over as skipper in February 2017.
Make no mistake - despite the horrendously disrupted calendar in the last 12 months, this England Test team have made some good progress during this period.
But, while beating Sri Lanka is one thing, getting the better of India - in India - is a completely different matter.
More ominously still, the Indians head into this tussle on the back of one of their most famous series wins in their entire history last month when they completed a 2-1 victory away in Australia.
Remarkably, the marquee triumph began with India recording their lowest ever total in Test cricket after being bowled out for 36 in the first Test in Adelaide.
Captain Virat Kohli then departed on paternity leave - and welcomed the birth of a baby girl on 11 January - while the remaining tour party was ripped apart by illness and injury.
Such was the extent of the enforced absences that India used no fewer than 20 different players across the four matches - and yet still turned it around.
By the turn of the year, the series was level as stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane hit a century in Melbourne to help India begin their amazing recovery with an eight-wicket victory.
Then, the Indians batted out the whole of the final day of the match in Sydney to set up a decider in Brisbane at the Gabba, a venue at which Australia had not lost a single Test match since 1988.
By this time, India were without six first-choice bowlers, two middle-order batsmen and, of course, Kohli himself.
Indeed, going into the game, the number of wickets taken by the bowlers of the two teams read 1033 to 13 in Australia's favour.
To top it all off, the Aussies won the toss - but then, somehow, this heavily patched-up India team spent four days grafting to stay in the match before achieving one of the greatest Test victories of all time.
Resuming the fifth and final day of the series on 4-0 and requiring 328, the Indians lost Rohit Sharma early - but still refused to fold against the menacing pace of Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc.
Instead, Shubman Gill (91) and later Rishabh Pant (89 not out) went on the attack against the bowlers while Cheteshwar Pujara (56) anchored the chase.
Pant and Pujara took India beyond tea with the requirement tumbling steadily - and, by the time Australia took Pujara's wicket, and those of the three men who followed, India had clearly done enough.
In fact, just two balls after Shardul Thakur was caught at square leg by Nathan Lyon, Pant hit the winning runs by smashing an off-drive to the boundary.
The fortress at the Gabba had finally been breached once more.
For India, the triumph demonstrated a frightening squad depth, particularly in the bowling department, which - at full strength - unusually features more threat from pace than spin.
England simply cannot afford to underestimate the quartet of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma with 60% of India's Test wickets taken by fast bowlers in the past four years.
Spin will still be a factor on the subcontinent, of course - but, perhaps, not to the extent that it once was, in the first innings at least.
However, as former England number three and current batting consultant Jonathan Trott has made clear, the first innings with the bat remains extremely important.
A little over four years ago, England twice scored 400 runs or more in the first knock, only then to lose both matches by an innings.
Of course, in English conditions, a score of 400 is usually enough to stay in a match, and often enough to take control of it.
But, in India, a team often needs to make 500 or 600 in the first innings while the pitch is pretty docile so that they have better control of their destiny in the second half of the game when the pitch breaks up and the match suddenly moves apace.
Worryingly, even in victory against Sri Lanka, England only made first innings totals of 421 and 344, and that was thanks mainly to the efforts of Root.
As a matter of fact, Root - as brilliant as he was - scored 426 of England's 1005 runs (42.4%) across the four innings last month, and was at one stage outscoring the contributions made from all of his team-mates put together.
Rather sensibly then, Root has been happy to play the role of the underdog ahead of his landmark appearance in Chennai.
Root said: "To get the opportunity to play India off the back of them beating Australia in Australia - what a scalp that would be for us.
"There will be more pressure on them than us - they have an expectation to uphold that record they have in their conditions.
Nevertheless, England supporters have every right to feel confident that the tourists will be more competitive in India than in that last series in 2016.
Now especially would be a particularly good time for England to cause an upset - with the surprise news that Test cricket will be returning to terrestrial television for the first time since that seminal Ashes series in 2005.
Just like back then, Channel 4 has gained the broadcast rights, though only after a long, drawn-out process was concluded by an 11th-hour deal.
"It is brilliant for the game,” said Root. “We want to inspire a generation, the next generation.
“You look at the stuff Sky do and the reach they get, they do a wonderful job and they give great content for all the viewers. [But] this is a great opportunity to reach out to a new audience, to grow the game as we keep talking about and for it to be more accessible for everyone else."
One last thing to point out in this preview is the impact that this series will have on the much-affected inaugural World Test Championship.
The number of postponements caused by the coronavirus has led to the league table being re-adjusted so that it is now based upon the percentage of points won in the matches which have actually been completed.
| Pos | Series Won | Tests Won | Tests Drawn | Tests Lost | Points | Played | Points % | Runs per Wicket | |
| (1) | INDIA | 4 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 430 | 600 | 71.7 | 1.619 |
| (Q) | NEW ZEALAND | 3 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 420 | 600 | 70.0 | 1.281 |
| (3) | AUSTRALIA | 2 | 8 | 2 | 4 | 332 | 480 | 69.2 | 1.392 |
| (4) | ENGLAND | 4 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 412 | 600 | 68.7 | 1.251 |
| (5) | PAKISTAN | 1 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 226 | 600 | 37.7 | 0.785 |
| (6) | SOUTH AFRICA | 1 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 144 | 420 | 34.3 | 0.677 |
| (7) | SRI LANKA | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 80 | 480 | 16.7 | 0.586 |
| (8) | WEST INDIES | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 40 | 360 | 11.1 | 0.493 |
| (9) | BANGLADESH | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 180 | 0.0 | 0.351 |
Earlier this week, Australia pulled out of their proposed trip to South Africa due to the ongoing concerns surrounding the new strain of the virus - and that was enough to send the world number one-ranked team, New Zealand, through to the Final at Lord's.
The Black Caps' opponents will be determined by the result of the India v England series, with the Aussies still retaining a chance to progress:
▪️ India will qualify for the Final with a series win by the score of 2-1, 2-0, 3-1, 3-0 or 4-0.
▪️ England will qualify for the Final with a 3-1, 3-0 or a 4-0 series win.
▪️ Australia will qualify for the Final if there is a drawn series, if India only win 1-0, or if England win 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1.
For now, though, it is time to sit back, relax and dust off that old CD with Mambo No 5 on it. Cricket on Channel 4 is back.
