India vs Bangladesh Tests: It’s one-sided on paper, but what does the form guide say | Cricket News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: India batting legend Rahil Dravid‘s last instruction as head coach to modern day great Virat Kohli was to complete his trophy cabinet. In his last dressing room talk, Dravid told Kohli, “one red to go, tick it.” Dravid was talking about the World Test Championship (WTC), a trophy still left to be conquered for India’s run-machine Kohli. That’s true for Team India too – like Kohli it has won all the ICC trophies except WTC.
The WTC is relatively a new ICC tournament, and is in its third cycle. The tournament was introduced to spice up Test cricket, and it has to some extent. India have played both the finals before this cycle, making them one of the most successful teams in the tournament’s history. India lost the inaugural edition final to New Zealand in 2021, and the last summit clash to Australia in 2023.
India are again favorites to make it a hat-trick of finals. But this time they want to complete their trophy cabinets too like their star batter, Virat Kohli.
After breaking the ICC trophy drought with their second T20 World Cup title this year, India now aim to bring the WTC title home.

They now begin their final stretch of the ‘Road to Lord’s’, the final is scheduled at the iconic venue in June next year, with the two-match Test series against a buoyant Bangladesh. The visitors are on a high after their historic series win over Pakistan, their first against their Asian rivals.
India have never lost a Test match against Bangladesh, and the World No.2 are again favourites against the ninth ranked neighbours. But in the WTC standings the gap is not as big as the Test rankings. India are on top, and Bangladesh are in the fourth spot, with the top two teams scheduled to play the one-off final at Lord’s next year.

Historical Test records for India and Bangladesh
India have more win percentage than loss against five of the Test playing teams out of ten opponents they have played in the longest-format of the game. But they have been most dominant against Bangladesh, except for Afghanistan against whom they have played just one match and won it. India have won 11 of the 13 matches against Bangladesh, with the remaining two matches ending in draws.
And for Bangladesh too, the Indian team is one of the only two teams they haven’t registered a win in Tests, with the other being South Africa. Pakistan were the third before their recent tour, where they registered a historic 2-0 sweep in Pakistan.
Bangladesh are high on confidence after their historic series win over Pakistan and it will definitely give them confidence against India.

What does the WTC form guide say…
Bangladesh: Six matches – three wins – three defeats – 45.83 percentage points
Bangladesh, as mentioned, are coming off a historic series sweep against Pakistan, which propelled them to fourth in the WTC standings. They have 45.83 percentage points, and are very much in the contention for the finals, though the route is tough for them.
In this WTC cycle, Bangladesh started with a two-match home series against New Zealand in November last year. They began with a bang, defeating the former WTC champions by 150 runs in the first match. But they lost out on an opportunity to win the series and suffered a four-wicket defeat in the second match. Their next home series against Sri Lanka did not pan out as desired, and they were comprehensively beaten by the visitors in both the matches.
But Bangladesh kept themselves alive in the WTC final race with the now famous 2-0 sweep against Pakistan away from home. They defeated Pakistan by 10 wickets and six wickets in Rawalpindi. But they have a tough task in hand against the Indian side who have not lost a Test series at home for more than a decade.

India: Nine matches – six wins – two defeats – one draw – 68.52 percentage points
After losing the second consecutive WTC finals against Australia in June last year, India began the current cycle in earnest. They toured West Indies in July 2023 itself, to play two-match series. India started with an innings win against the Windies in the first Test, before drawing the second match. It was the only drawn Test so far for India in this cycle.
India visited South Africa next, in 2023 year end for their next assignment. They suffered an innings defeat in the Boxing Day Test against the Proteas, but bounced back to win the second by seven wickets to level the series 1-1. A fairly good result for India, keeping in mind their track record in South Africa.
India then hosted England for a five-Test series. The hosts lost the first Test narrowly by 28 runs, but it turned out to be the much-needed wakeup call for them. India bounced back to win the next four matches to not only clinch the series 4-1 but to firmly put themselves on track to their third successive WTC finals.
What can we expect from the teams
Bangladesh are coming off a morale boosting series win last month, which means they are in good red-ball form, and their players are in the much-needed frame of mind for the grinds of a five-day contest.
Whereas, India haven’t played Test cricket for more than six months, with their last red-ball contest way back in February against England. Their players are mostly in the white-ball mindset, and even there their last international outings were a 0-2 defeat against Sri Lanka in three-match ODI series.
To make the squad red-ball ready, most of the team members participated in the domestic Duleep Trophy game, except for the senior most members of the team. Will it make them ready for the five-day grind, only time will tell as the Bangladesh series kicks off on Thursday, 19th September.

Few India vs Bangladesh Tests stats ahead of the series:
Top Indian run-getters against Bangladesh

Top Bangladesh run-getters against India

Top Indian wicket-takers against Bangladesh

Top Bangladesh wicket-takers against India