England's favourite venue

Alex Tudor: England Edgbaston hero last summer

Ahead of the first Test against West Indies, News Online's Thrasy Petropoulos takes a look at how England have fared at Edgbaston in recent years.

England have reason to be grateful to officials at Warwickshire for dreaming up the idea of proposing Edgbaston as the venue for the first Test of each major series.

It was a decision made by default rather than good judgement, but it turned out to be the most successful - perhaps the only consistently successful - move in a decade of English cricket.

Edgbaston, where opening Test against the West Indies starts on Thursday, is the only ground where England won more Tests than they lost through the 1990s.

More revealingly since 1996, when the sequence of first Tests was started, England have won three out of four, with victories against India, Australia and New Zealand, and a draw against South Africa.

The fact that only India were beaten over the series is neither here nor there: three times the team got off to a perfect start.

Botham: His 1981 feats will never be forgotten

After all, the first Test match ever staged at Edgbaston, against Australia in 1902, saw the Aussies rumbled for 36 in their first innings.

Then there was Ian Botham's magical spell of 5-1 against the same opponents in 1981 which saw England triumph once again against the odds.

It has not always been a lucky venue for England. After starting the 1990s with an emphatic 114-run win against New Zealand, courtesy of Graham Gooch's 154 and Eddie Hemmings's six for 58, the West Indies - and Malcolm Marshall in particular - made short work of the home team a year later.

Then came a drawn match against Pakistan, where Alec Stewart and Robin Smith scored hundreds, and successive hidings by Australia and the West Indies.

A certain Shane Warne celebrated figures of five for 82 for Australia and, against the West Indies, England were beaten as early as the third morning on a pitch which was palpably unfit for Test cricket.

But there the bad news ends.

Hussain: Never looked back after his hundred against India

In 1996, Nasser Hussain scored his first Test hundred after his recall and Chris Lewis took five for 72 as India were swept aside by eight wickets.

The following year, Australia found themselves 54 for eight on the first morning of the Ashes series and were dismissed for 118. Hussain (208) and Graham Thorpe (138) then batted the Aussies out of the game and England won by nine wickets.

It might have been short-lived, but the hope was there that the Ashes just might be coming home.

After a rain-affected draw against South Africa in 1998 came the most unpredictable contest of the decade, against New Zealand.

Everyone remembers Alex Tudor's match-winning 99 not out, then the highest score by a nightwatchman, but few recall that England had been in deep, deep trouble to that point, and that Tudor had bailed them out in the first innings as well.

The Kiwis, dismissed for 226, struck back by knocking England over for 126, of which Tudor scored 32 not out. But back England came, dismissing New Zealand for 107 - only the 14th time in Test history there had been two completed innings on the same day.

Just to reinforce the point, England lost Stewart before the close as they set about chasing 208 for victory.

This time, however, the pitch was faultless. By the morning the atmospheric conditions that had enabled lavish seam movement the previous days had altered and Tudor was able to make merry.

Once again Edgbaston had smiled on England.

1990 v New Zealand England won by 114 runs
1991 v West Indies England lost by 7 wickets
1992 v Pakistan Match drawn
1993 v Australia England lost by 8 wickets
1994 Did not stage a Test match
1995 v West Indies England lost by an innings and 64 runs
1996 v India England won by 8 wickets
1997 v Australia England won by 9 wickets
1998 v South Africa Match drawn
1999 v New Zealand England won by 7 wickets