India won the second and third Tests after losing the first to win the three-Test series 2-1 in Sri Lanka. Bharath Seervi lists similar instances in Test cricket history.
The first Test series victory for India in 22 years in Sri Lanka did not come easily. Though they had a good start to the series, they ended up losing the first Test. At one point of time, statisticians were digging out the last occasion when India won a Test by an innings in Sri Lanka. But the next day the team ended up losing the match by 63 runs while chasing 176 in the fourth innings. Scorecard: India vs Sri Lanka, 3rd Test at Colombo
The young side did hold their nerves and won the next two Tests with huge margins of 278 runs and 117 runs. This was only the second time India won a three- Test series after losing the first Test. The first time they did was in the historic Border-Gavaskar Trophy of 2000-01 played in India in which India lost the first Test by ten wickets and won the next two Tests by margins of 171 runs and 2 wickets including a victory at Eden Gardens after being asked to follow-on.
– Out of the 12, ten such series have been in the last 20 years.
– Pakistan against Zimbabwe in 1994-95, Sri Lanka against Pakistan in 1995 and England against Sri Lanka in 2000-01 won the second and the third Tests after suffering innings defeats in the first.
– England in Australia 1883-84, Pakistan in Zimbabwe 1994-95, Sri Lanka in Pakistan 1995, England in Sri Lanka 2000-01, England in New Zealand 2007-08 and India in Sri Lanka 2015 achieved this away from home.
– England has done this four times which is the most by any team. Incidentally, three of those came away from home.
– Australia and New Zealand have been on the losing side on three such occasions but have never won any such series.
There have been 36 three-Test series that had ended 2-1. In 12 of those the team winning the first Test went on to lose the next two of the series which — amounting to 33 per cent.
Last year England won the five-Test series 3-1 after trailing 0-1 against India in England.
(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at @SeerviBharath and on Facebook here)
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