A spirited performance from their pacers helped India edged England by six runs in a thriller in the fifth and final Test at The Oval on Monday.
The Shubman Gill-led India bounced back after a narrow 22-run defeat in the third Test at Lord's to defy the England bowlers on the final day to earn a creditable draw in Manchester Test before they finished off the job in the final Test to draw the series 2-2.
The series, played mostly on flat pitches, saw batters from both teams dominate recording a staggering run aggregate of 7187 runs -- the second-highest in a series in Test history.
The attacking intent from the batters saw the two teams combined post a total of 300 or more as many as 14 times in the series to equal the record for the most 300-plus scores in a Test series.
The series saw nine players amass 400 or more runs to their names, underlining the consistency and resilience of the top and middle-order line-ups.
Shubman Gill topped the run charts with 754 runs, hitting four centuries including a career-best 269, while Joe Root (537), K L Rahul (532) and Ravindra Jadeja (516) also got past the 500-run mark.
The series also saw 50 instances of individual scores of fifty and above, another record that stands jointly at the top of the all-time list. To add to that, 21 centuries were scored across the five Tests -- the highest ever recorded in a single series.
Partnerships were the bedrock of this batting dominance, with 19 century stands witnessed in the series -- the joint-most
Joe Root combined with Harry Brook to put together a 195-run partnership -- the second-highest fourth-innings partnership ever in a losing cause, just behind K L Rahul and Rishabh Pant's 204-run stand at The Oval in 2018.
This was only the third time in Test history that a team lost after scoring over 300 runs for the loss of just three wickets in the fourth innings. The previous two such instances were Australia's collapse from 305/3 to 310 all out against Pakistan in 1978-79, and the West Indies' fall from 303/3 to 387 all out against Australia in 2007-08 while chasing 475.
England's collapse from 332/4 to defeat places them second on the list of the highest four-wicket down totals in a failed chase, the only one ahead of them was their own collapse from 346/4 to 417 all out at Melbourne in 1976-77.
Root, who made 105, registered his 39th Test hundred in the second innings of The Oval Test, going past Kumar Sangakkara's tally of 38 centuries, with only Sachin Tendulkar (51), Jacques Kallis (45), and Ricky Ponting (41) ahead of him in the all-time list.
India's series-levelling win at The Oval was more than just a hard-fought result, it was historic. The six-run victory became India's narrowest win in Test cricket in terms of runs, surpassing their 13-run triumph over Australia in Mumbai in 2004-05 season.
The Oval Test also marked the first time India managed to win either the fifth or sixth Test of a series away from home. It had taken them 17 attempts to get there. Their only other experience of playing a sixth Test overseas was back in 1982-83, at Karachi, and even that had ended in a draw.
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