With the limited-over leg of India tour of West Indies finished, the focus now shifts to the longer format of the game. The first Test match begins from 22 August, Thursday at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, North Sound, Antigua.
The first time these two sides met were in the winters of 1948, when the touring West Indies side defeated India 1-0 in a five-match Test series. Since then India went on to lose their next four series against the mighty Windies - two in India and two abroad.
It was only in 1971, in Sunil Gavaskar’s debut Test match, India registered their first Test match win against the West Indies. Later, India went on to win the series also 1-0.
After the win in 1971, India and West Indies Test series were more or less evenly contested. But the balance tilted heavily in India’s favour at the advent of the new millennium.
West Indies have not only won a Test series but have failed to register a Test win against India since May 2002.
With the upcoming two-match Test series, the Jason Holder-led Windies side would like break the seventeen-year-old jinx against Team India. The last Windies captain to win a Test match as well a series against India was Carl Hooper.
Here’s a look at some of the important numbers from the India-West Indies Test rivalry over the years:
- 96 Tests have been played against each other. West Indies enjoy winning percentage of 31.25, winning 30 Tests as against 20.83 by India, winning 20. The remaining 46 Tests could not produce results.
- India have won seven Tests out of the last ten played against the West Indies since November 14, 2011.
- The last seven Test series between the two teams since 2002-03 have been won by India. In the seven series, India have won 12 Tests and drawn nine out of 21 played.
- In the 1958-59 Delhi Test, West Indies had posted 644 for eight wickets declared - their highest against India. India had registered 649 for nine wickets declared in the 2018-19 Rajkot Test - their highest against the West Indies.
- India have recorded five totals of less than 100 against the West Indies - their lowest being 75 in the 1987-88 Delhi Test while West Indies' lowest has been 103 in the 2006 Kingston Test.
- Rohan Kanhai's career-best first-class score of 256 in the 1958-59 Kolkata Test remains the highest individual innings for the West Indies vs India. For India, Sunil Gavaskar's career-best Test score of 236 not out in the 1983-84 Chennai Test is the highest against the West Indies.
- West Indies (614/5 wickets declared) defeated India (124 & 154) by an innings and 336 runs in the aforesaid Test - the biggest victory margin in Tests involving India and West Indies.
- Jack Noreiga had produced a career-best 9 for 95 in the 1970-71 Port of Spain Test against the West Indies. Kapil Dev's figures of 9 for 83 in the 1983-84 Ahmedabad Test are also his best ever.
- In the history of Test annals, Kapil remains the only captain to produce a nine-wicket haul in a Test innings.
- Sir Everton Weekes had managed 779 runs at an average of 111.28, including four hundreds, in the 1948-49 five-Test series - the highest by any batsman in a Test series involving India and West Indies.
- For India, Sunil Gavaskar had managed 774 runs at an average of 154.80, including four hundreds, in four Tests in the 1970-71 series - an Indian record as well as a record by a batsman in his debut Test series.
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