Picture Credit: Twitter/BCCI
The Narendra Modi Stadium, in Ahmedabad has garnered a lot of criticism for being a poor pitch in the 3rd Test as match ended in just two days and it ended up being the shortest Test match post World War-II. For the upcoming 4th Test match which is about to begin on March 4th (Thursday), the pitch is expected to assist the spinners once again and Umesh Yadav (or) Mohammed Siraj is on the cards to replace Jasprit Bumrah.
India just need to avoid a defeat in 4th Test to ensure or secure a place in World Test Championship finals and they would be looking to go for kill with their spin attack. England's batting has heavily relied on Joe Root in this series and that has been a major concern for the visitors. Other than Joe Root, none of the Englishman has played Indian spin attack well and that has reflected well on the series results.
Before the 4th Test match between India and England, here are some of the interesting numbers and approaching milestones:
0: England hasn't lost a single Test series in World Test Championship 2019-2021 so far. If the 4th Test ends in Loss (or) Draw for them then this will become the first instance of England losing a series in World Test Championship.
It's also important to note that India have won all the Test series they played in home conditions under Kohli's captaincy. So if England ends up winning the 4th Test then this will be the first instance of India not winning a home Test series.
1000: Joe Root needs 83 more runs to score 1000 Test runs vs India on Indian soil. He will become only the 5th player to achieve this feat after Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge, Matthew Hayden and Sir Alastair Cook.
11: Ravichandran Ashwin has dismissed Ben Stokes 11 times in Test Cricket. For an Indian player only Kapil Dev has got more dismissal of a same batsman which is Mudassar Nazar (12 times). If Ashwin dismisses Stokes once (or) twice, he can equal (or) go past Kapil's Dev record of dismissing the same player for 12 (or) 13 times.
1000: Rohit Sharma needs 19 more runs to achieve 1000 runs in Test as opener and 1000 runs in World Test Championship. Currently, he has scored 981 runs from 16 innings as an opener. Fastest Indian to reach 1000 runs as opener was Mayank Agarwal before in 19 innings
60: Virat Kohli will play as Team India captain for 60th time in Test cricket and would equal MS Dhoni's record for playing joint-most Tests as captain for Team India. Overall Graeme Smith (109), Allan Border (93), Stephen Fleming (80), Ricky Ponting (77) and Clive Lloyd (74) are the five players to have played more than 60 Test matches as captain.
14.8: Ajinkya Rahane averages just 14.8 (scored 148 runs) against England in the 10 innings he has played on Indian soil. Rahane's form seems to be a big concern for Team India. Only bowlers like Ishant Sharma, BS Chandrasekhar, Bishen Singh Bedi and EAS Prasanna have a lesser batting average in Indian soil vs England in Tests (Minimum 10 innings played).
50: If India wins the 4th Test then Cheteshwar Pujara will become only the 3rd Indian player to win 50 Tests after Sachin Tendulkar (72) and Rahul Dravid (56).
100: Umesh Yadav needs just 4 more wickets to get 100 Test wickets in Indian soil alone. Only 4 other pace bowlers namely, Kapil Dev, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma have achieved this feat so far.
16: Jack Leach has got 16 wickets in this Test series. In a 4-match (or) less Test series vs India in India, only four other bowlers namely, Hedley Verity (23), Graeme Swann (20), Geoff Arnold (17) & Monty Panesar (17) have picked more wickets than Jack Leach. Leach can go past some of the names in the list after the 4th Test match.