The astonishing numbers of England's Test series with India

Nerve-wracking and nail-biting for the combatants, but an epic for the neutral.

England's home Test series with India will live long in the memory of the cricket world, with nothing to separate the two teams after 25 incredible days.

And history was created on a number of fronts across the series, even if captains Ben Stokes and Shubman Gill were forced to share the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy at The Oval.

6: Smallest victory by runs for India in Test cricket

India only had 34 runs to play with come the final morning at The Oval, needing four wickets for an unlikely victory.

After 56 minutes of enthralling cricket, and after giving away 28 runs, India squeezed home, taking the final wicket of Gus Atkinson, and claiming their tightest victory in Test history.

The six-run win finished inside their 13-run victory over Australia in Mumbai back in 2004, when they defended just 106 and bowled the tourists out for 93.

In almost 2600 matches of men's Test cricket, there have been just seven narrower wins.

7187: Total runs in the series (most in a five-match Test series)

Top class batting and impressive scoring rates helped the two teams to a record number of combined runs for a five-match series, and only bettered by the six-Test 1993 Ashes series in the UK (7221).

The 6736 runs off the bat also falls just 20 runs short of the 1993 series of 6756.

India's contribution of 3807 of the 7187 is also the most in a five-Test series, with 12 centuries from India equal-most for a single team and 21 across the teams also joint record.

Thanks to the work of Shubman Gill (754 runs), KL Rahul (532) and Ravindra Jadeja (516), India's batters became just the sixth trio in Test history to pass 500 runs in the same series.

3: Matches in five with first innings gap inside 30 runs

Only four other Test series have ever had three matches with first innings gaps of inside 30 runs, including England's home 2023 Ashes series.

Curiously, the third Test also had both sides finish on the same first innings score (387), the ninth occurrence in the men's format. The same teams both made the same first innings total (390) in a Test at Edgbaston back in 1986.

45: Bowled dismissals in the series

If felt like the stumps were always in a mess in the series, with Mohammed Siraj's dismissal of Gus Atkinson to claim victory a fitting way to end proceedings at The Oval.

The 45 bowled dismissals were the most in any men's Test series since 1984, and the most in a series held in England since 1976.

Jasprit Bumrah, despite playing just three of the five Test matches, claimed 10 wickets via the dismissal method.

25: Days played across the five-Test series

Helped perhaps by some inclement weather on day four at The Oval, the teams faced off over every scheduled day of the series, with Siraj bowling on 18 of the 25 days.

The last time a five-Test series saw all five games going to the fifth day was the 2017/18 Ashes in Australia, with England stretching the series out despite a 4-0 defeat.

It's only the fourth time this century a five-Test series has seen all five games go to five days, with other instances including the England tour of South Africa in 2004/05 and South Africa tour of West Indies in 2001.