Only once has an Indian team left an England tour having won more than a single Test match
Big picture
Form guide
(last five completed matches; most recent first)
England: LDLDL
India: WDLWW
Players to watch
3:40
Steve Harmison: If everyone is fit, India should roll the same four quicks out
Team news
England (probable): 1 Rory Burns, 2 Haseeb Hameed, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Joe Root (capt), 5 Jonny Bairstow, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Sam Curran, 9 Ollie Robinson, 10 Craig Overton/Saqib Mahmood, 11 James Anderson
India (probable): 1 KL Rahul, 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4 Virat Kohli (capt), 5 Ajinkya Rahane, 6 Rishabh Pant (wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Mohammed Shami, 9 Hanuma Vihari/Ishant Sharma, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mohammed Siraj
Pitch and conditions
While most surfaces in England do lean seamer-friendly, the suspicion is that this one won’t have a lot of pace. Kohli even noted how there wasn’t so much grass on it in the pre-match press-conference. The weather forecast for the Test suggests it will be a largely dry five days, with cloud cover.
Stats
Quotes
“There’s three massive games to play in the series. It’s a lot to play for and we’re desperate to bounce back strongly”
England captain Joe Root
“I am not bothered about criticism. As I said, people criticise only important people”
India vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane
Alagappan Muthu is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo