Friday 16 December 2016 06:01, UK
India are unbeaten in their last seven Tests at Chennai (won four and drawn three) dating back to 2001 and they have tasted defeat at the ground only once in the last 14 matches there.
England have won three Tests there - all convincingly. They won by 202 runs in 1934 and by 200 runs in 1977. Their most recent victory came in 1985 when they won by nine wickets thanks to double-centuries by Graeme Fowler and Mike Gatting and 11 wickets from Neil Foster.
That match remains the only occasion on which two England batsmen have scored double-centuries in the same Test innings.
England have already lost seven Test Matches in 2016. One more loss in the Chennai Test and they will equal their worst years in history in terms of losing Tests.
The all-time record is held by Bangladesh, who lost all nine of their Tests in 2003. If India avoid defeat they will set a new record for their longest unbeaten streak in history.
The West Indies hold the all-time record with 27 successive Tests without defeat from January 1982 to December 1984.
On closer analysis, England's much-vaunted strong batting line-up is not really that as their specialist batting ends at number three with Joe Root. Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes are useful middle and lower middle-order batsmen but specialist batsmen they are not, and therefore are more inconsistent than the tried and tested Alastair Cook and Root.
England used to pride themselves with a top seven all of whom averaged at least 40 with the bat. Now that top seven comprises Moeen (32), Stokes (34) and Buttler (32) together with one-match Jennings at the top.
Cook needs two runs to become the tenth player to score 11,000 runs in Test cricket. He would be the youngest to reach the landmark too, more than two years younger than Sachin Tendulkar.
Ravichandran Ashwin is the top-ranked bowler in the world in the ICC Test Rankings with 904 points. This is the highest ranking achieved by an Indian bowler.
The only other Indian to achieve 900 points with bat or ball in Test cricket is Sunil Gavaskar
Ashwin needs three wickets to reach 250 in Test cricket. So far he boasts 247 wickets in 44 Tests. A total of 39 bowlers have taken at least 250 wickets in Tests, and only three of them got there in 50 or fewer matches - all seamers.
Virat Kohli is second in the ICC Test batting rankings, just 11 points behind Steve Smith. If he achieves first place, he will be just the second player to top Test, ODI and T20 rankings over the course of his career, after Ricky Ponting.
Moeen Ali needs three wickets to become the 46th England bowler to take 100 Test wickets. However, he is one of only three England bowlers to have taken more than fifty wickets at an average of more than forty.
Moeen and spin twin Adil Rashid have the worst economy rate of any of the 123 England bowlers to have taken at least thirty Test wickets.
You can watch the fifth test between India v England live on Sky Sports 2 HD from 3.30am on Friday.
