Five Controversies that have hit India vs England Test series in the past

India will be playing a massive series in England starting July 3 and it will include a three twenty20 and One-Day International (ODI) series followed by a five-game Test series between August 1 and September 11. This will be India’s first five-match Test series since 2016-17 when they defeated the same opponents 4-0 in at home.

Abroad, this will be India’s first five-match Test series since the one in England in 2014 which they lost 1-3. The run-machine of today’s cricketing world – Virat Kohli, who will also be captaining India in this year’s series – had a disastrous outing that year, averaging 13.50 in 10 innings with the highest score of 39.

We will keep a track on how things go when India take on the hosts, who will be playing their 1000th Test at Birmingham starting August 1, but as of now, let’s have a glimpse of some of the worst controversies that had hit the India-England Test series in the past. The India-England Test series in England is played for the Pataudi Trophy, which was first awarded in 2007 to commemorate 75 years of Test rivalry between the two sides.

1. Infamous jelly-gate; 2nd Test at Trent Bridge;  July 2007

Having got bundled for 198 in less than a day’s play in their first innings, Michael Vaughan’s England found the Indian batsmen were in no mood to loosen the noose and took a robust lead of 266 runs when the last of their top seven fell in the form of VVS Laxman. In came Zaheer Khan, India’s most successful bowler in the first innings and the English players decided to play a prank and that snowballed into a major controversy, labelled today as “jelly gate” in the cricketing circuits.

It so happened that as Khan came out to bat, he found some jelly beans lying the wicket. As he cleaned them up and played his next ball, there were some more of the stuff. Khan was irritated by this as he understood it was being deliberately done and the fact that someone was chuckling from behind infuriated him more. He was so upset that he went to Kevin Pietersen who was fielding at gully although Alastair Cook was standing closer by, at short leg. Khan later said that he didn’t know from where the beans were being thrown. The England cricketers made fun of him and the umpires had to intervene.

An “insulted” Zaheer Khan came back even stronger in the second innings, taking five wickets to break the hosts’ batting spine, and giving India a win by 7 wickets to pick up their first Test series victory in England after 21 years. Khan was adjudged the man of the match for taking 9 wickets.

Match score: England 198 & 355; India 481 & 73/3