With the end of the limited-overs leg of India tours of England 2018, there has been a sudden hike in the excitement of the Test series that is about to follow.

The two teams competed fiercely in the T20I and ODI series. England will be hosting India for a five-match test series for the Pataudi Trophy 2018 from the beginning of August until the second week of September.

England is already 1-0 up in the Test series. The decision to not play Cheteshwar Pujara proved costly for India, he would have been an ideal player during such situations. Chasing just 194 runs is not a big deal for India which has world-class batsmen.

Virendra Sehwag's recent tweet opens the selection debates to include him in the second Test.

The tour so far has been quite evenly balanced. India won the T20I series by 2-1, after which England claimed the ODI series by a similar margin. Now, the teams are all set to face the real test of the British Summer of 2018. The last time England played India in a test series was back in India in 2016 when the hosts dominated the Englishmen and won the five-match series by 4-0.

Recent records of England and India:

The hosts England haven't been quite at their best in the recent times.

Though Joe Root's men won the last test match they played against Pakistan earlier this summer, their form before that was forgettable.

England lost two back to back test series in Australia and New Zealand, which was followed by another loss to Pakistan in the first test of the summer. England did pull off a victory in the next test to level the series against Pakistan, but it is expected that India will present a better challenge in front of the fifth-ranked test side in the world, England.

India, on the other hand, last played a test in June, when they hosted Afghanistan for a one-off test match and won that game comprehensively against the debutants.

Earlier this year, the Indian side was on the tour to South Africa, where they lost the series by 2-1 but the victory in the last test by the Virat Kohli led side was quite an outstanding one.

Before that, India had beaten Sri Lanka in successive test series (home and away) with results of 3-0 and 1-0.

India is currently the world no. 1 Test team by quite a margin and if the series against England goes well, they will be staying on top for quite some time.

Schedule of the test series :

2nd Test: August 09 - August 13, Lord's, London

3rd Test: August 18 - August 22, Trent Bridge, Nottingham

4th Test: August 30 - September 03, The Rose Bowl, Southampton

5th Test: September 07 - September 11, Kennington Oval, London

India has announced their squad of 18 members for the first three games.

For India, regular wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha misses out due to an injury, and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar is yet to achieve full fitness. Karun Nair kept his place in the squad, just like Dinesh Karthik, along with whom young Rishabh Pant has got his maiden test call.

As the two teams gear up for this mega-series, there will be a lot of fans waiting to watch their favorite cricketers battling it out against each other. From Kohli-Anderson to Cook-Jadeja, there are many personal battles that are yet to be fought.

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