With the much-awaited Australia vs South Africa Test series being called off and New Zealand qualifying for the finals of the World Test Championship, all eyes will be on Chennai where England will start Chapter 2 of their Asia tour by taking on Team India for a four-match series from Friday after a 2-0 win in Sri Lanka.
The series will be crucial for both teams. Results like 2-0, 3-0, 4-0 or 3-1 will seal India's spot as the second finalist, whereas a disaster at home will wipe out Kohli and Co's chances of taking on New Zealand at Lord's in order to earn the WTC Trophy.
Entering the series on the back of a historic 2-1 win in Australia, Team India will be overwhelming favourites due to their unbeaten home run in the last nine years. However, an allround side like England, aware of the equations to secure a WTC final berth, won't be easy to roll over.
With international cricket coming back in India after a gap of nearly a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the next one-and-a-half months promise to be an exciting time for fans.
Just like any other high-profile series, this contest too has some key talking points.
Here's a quick look at them:
Kohli vs Anderson clash returns again
Virat Kohli and James Anderson, two modern day giants, faced each other for the first time in 2014 in England.
It was not a happy time for the Delhi dasher.
Kohli could manage only 134 runs in ten innings, while Anderson on the other hand, ended up being the series' most successful bowler, with 25 wickets in five games. The sight of the England legend's outswingers kissing Kohli's outside edge and landing in the hands of slip fielders became commonplace.
Two years later, when the two sides met again for a five-Test series in the subcontinent, the tables turned. Kohli amassed 655 runs, while Anderson who was battling injury could manage only four wickets in three games.
He also made headlines by almost calling the Indian skipper a flat track bully. This in turn saw the England pace spearhead having angry on-field exchanges with Ravichandran Ashwin during the final day of the fourth Test in Mumbai.
In 2018, when the third chapter of the rivalry occured in England, Kohli proved that his subcontinent success against them didn't make him a one trick pony, as he again ended up as the series' top run scorer (593 runs in five matches) despite India's 1-4 defeat. Anderson too repeated his 2014 act, taking 24 scalps.
With the two legends taking on each other for another four-match bout, this contest within the contest will to some extent decide the series' outcome. Anderson, who has a respectable record of 66 wickets at an average of 29.10 in India, fired a warning shot in the just-concluded two-match series against Sri Lanka, bagging 6-46 in 31 overs in the second Test.
Kohli, on the other hand, has conquered his off-side demons against the swing legend in the last two series between the two teams and will be aiming to continue the same momentum.
Four bowlers or five: A major selection headache for hosts
A look at Team India for the first two Tests of the series in Chennai and the message is clear -- the hosts are betting heavily on their spin resources to inflict maximum damage on the tourists.
While Ravichandran Ashwin, all-rounder Washington Sundar and Chinaman Kuldeep Yadav all retained their spots, Axar Patel got rewarded for his impressive List A shows (303 scalps and above 4000 runs in 172 games). Shahbaz Nadeem and Rahul Chahar are the two standbys.
With the hosts having the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur in their pace arsenal, Kohli and Co face a selection headache.
With Bumrah, Ashwin and Ishant being automatic picks, all will depend on India's strategy -- whether they want an extra batsman and go with four bowlers or stick with the usual combination of five wicket-taking options.
The Chepauk surface too will be in the spotlight. Despite having a history of being a rank turner, this time the script may be different as the Test match here from Friday will mark the return of international cricket in India after eleven months. So, in all likelihood, the presence of some grass cover on the 22 yards will put the teams on even terms.
Despite Kuldeep spending the entire Australia series on the bench, the Chinaman, in Jadeja's absence, is now the second most experienced spinner after Ashwin, with a haul of 24 wickets in six games.
If the surface has a grass cover, Kohli and Co will be tempted to go with three pacers. In that case, Mohammed Siraj, who was India's wrecker-in-chief against Australia (13 wickets in three matches) a few weeks ago, will get a go.
What if the home side decides to play five bowlers including an all-rounder?
One option will be to slot Axar Patel as the fifth bowler (going by his batting and bowling averages of 35.42 and 27.38) and back him to replicate a Jadeja-like allround act.
So the bowling line-up would comprise Bumrah, Ishant, Siraj, Ashwin and Patel. Here, Kuldeep misses the cut, going by his poor batting average of 8.5.
Washington Sundar also makes a strong case, going by his effective wicket-to-wicket offspin against left-handers -- England have as many as three such batsmen in their ranks.
While the Tamil Nadu lad gave a strong show in his debut game against the Aussies at the Gabba (84 runs in two innings, including a half-century and four wickets), lack of regular first-class experience may hurt his selection chances over Patel.
Another frontrunner is Shardul Thakur who had a major role to play in India's Gabba win, with a knock of 67 as well as seven wickets. But with Siraj, Bumrah and Ishant already looking the likeliest new-ball options (barring last-minute injuries), Thakur may have to sit out.
Root lands in India in the form of his life
The England skipper, who made a massive statement with a debut knock of 73 against India in the subcontinent nine years ago, has already earned Steve Smith-like notoriety against India, scoring 1328 runs in 15 Tests.
Here are some staggering stats about Root!
He has 8249 runs in 99 Tests at an average of 49.39 so far. On his 30th birthday on December 30 last year, he ended up at number three in the list of batters having the most Test runs before 31. Only Alastair Cook and Sachin Tendulkar are ahead of him.
While talking about Root and the comparison with his three illustrious contemporaries -- Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson and Steve Smith -- the England skipper has an away average of 48.16, next best to Smith (67.72). Root's 500-plus runs at 50-plus averages in Asia, Africa, Caribbean and the UK make him only the third batsman after Jacques Kallis and Ken Barrington to have this rare record.
His 68 scores over fifty are the most by any batsman after 99 Tests. Sunil Gavaskar is the second best (66). His rate of 2.7 innings per 50-plus score places him at number two after Smith and Williamson (2.3). Kohli is at third position with a rate of 2.9 innings. However, when it comes to converting the fifty into a big knock, Kohli tops the chart with a ratio of 1.39 innings, while Root has a poor 0.39.
Root also leads England's elite 8000-run club with an average of 49.39, thus surpassing the likes of Geoffrey Boycott, Kevin Pietersen, Alastair Cook, David Gower, Graham Gooch and Alex Stewart.
In the recently concluded Test series against Sri Lanka, Root amassed 426 runs in two games. His average and strike rate were 190.5 and 69.9 respectively, whereas all the other England batsmen collectively managed only 451 runs with an average and strike rate of 22.55 and 45.4. Out of those 426 runs, Root scored 200 against spinner Lasith Embuldeniya, Sri Lanka's most successful bowler in the series with 15 scalps.
He also improved his Asia average from 46.07 to 54.13. With 1624 runs in 16 matches, he is next only to Cook, who has the best figures for an English batsman in Asia (2710 runs in 28 matches). With 56.90, David Gower (1138 runs in 16 matches) has the best average so far in this part of the world.
England spinners have form, but tough task to outfox Kohli and Co
England's historic 2-1 series win in the subcontinent nine years ago saw their spinners outperforming their Indian counterparts. The duo of Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar shared 37 scalps between them and put a question mark on Team India's record against spinners, despite a batting line-up which boasted the likes of Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh.
This time too, the Joe Root-led side lands in India with an in-form combo of Jack Leach and Dom Bess, with Moeen Ali too back after recovering from COVID-19.
Although Leach and Bess shared 22 dismissals between them in Sri Lanka, it will be their first series in India. Ali, however, has an impressive record against India (22 wickets in seven games).
Now, the task for Bess and Leach will be very clear -- backing up Broad and Anderson and adding more pressure on the home side's batters by bowling a tight line and length. But it looks difficult here. Here's why.
Bess' right-arm offspin is all about bowling flat in the air around outside off, with a preference to bowl sliders with a roundarm action that is effective in inducing outside edges.
Leach, on the other hand, has a stock delivery, which pitches and finishes inside the stumps. He also uses the edge of the bowling crease to create the angle which forces the batters to play against the spin.
Despite scripting England's 2-0 win in Sri Lanka, the duo will be up against an Indian batting line-up, which takes an organized approach against spinners.
While their scoring pattern involves the rotation of strike and defending wicket-to-wicket deliveries, anything marginally short will see India running away with the game with some aggressive strokeplay.
Bess and Leach also need to stop the home side's batters from finding gaps with their swift footwork.
The recipe looks easy but challenging: Not to fall into the trap of creating magic deliveries and then tiring out under the heat amid long spells, bowling wicket-to-wicket, using the rough areas around batsmen and most importantly cutting down on the amount of loose deliveries.
Loopholes still exist in visitors' batting ranks
Despite the return of their premier allrounders Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali as well as Root's raging form, there are more questions than answers for the England team management before picking their batting line-up against Kohli and Co.
Opener Rory Burns, since his debut at 2018, has only two centuries to show after 21 Tests, with an average of 32.44.
In his absence in Sri Lanka, Dom Sibley and Zak Crawley struggled, as their hard hands and poor footwork on the turning Galle surfaces saw them managing 62 and 35 runs each after two Tests.
They became perfect candidates for LBW and caught behind.
Sibley, however, recovered from the horror as he changed his technique and scored a 144-ball 56 during the visitors' 164-run chase in the fourth innings of the second Test.
Jonny Bairstow, England's second most successful batsman with 139 runs in those two Tests, will miss the first two games in Chennai due to workload managment ahead of the World T20 later this year, thus creating a void at number three.
With inexperienced names such as Ollie Pope, Dan Lawrence and Ben Foakes in their playing XI against the in-form Indian bowling, the likes of Stokes, Ali and Jos Buttler need to have the series of their lifetimes to cause headaches for India.
Wicketkeeper or specialist batsman: Which role will Rishabh Pant play?
Despite scoring 274 runs in three Tests against Australia a couple of weeks back, including knocks of 97 and 89 in the second innings in Sydney and Brisbane, Rishabh Pant and wicketkeeping look like a gigantic mismatch.
With Pant's glovework still being dubbed an unfinished product, Kohli and Co may look to play him as a specialist batsman in the middle order and use his aggressive strokeplay against the spinners to put pressure on Leach and Bess.
In that scenario, Wriddhiman Saha makes a strong case due to his experience of keeping behind the stumps on turning surfaces. However, the Bengal cricketer's batting average of 29.09 may make the team management reluctant to accommodate him in the playing XI at the expense of a fifth bowling option.
With the Chepauk surface having some grass cover, the home side may also take the risk of playing Pant as wicketkeeper, along with six specialist batters and four bowlers.