India will play the 600th Test match in their history on 15 August 2026 against Sri Lanka at the Galle International Stadium. It makes India the third team ever to reach 600 Tests, after England and Australia, and the first from Asia to get there.
The date is not a small detail either. India played its first Test in June 1932, fifteen years before the country was independent. Test number 600 lands on 15 August — 79 years to the day after independence.
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- Quick facts
- When is India's 600th Test match?
- What is India's record after 599 Tests?
- Which teams have played 600 Test matches?
- India took 84 years to reach 500. The next 100 took under a decade
- India's Test record at Galle
- India's Test record in Sri Lanka
- India's squad for the 600th Test
- What is actually at stake beyond the milestone
- FAQ
- When will India play their 600th Test match?
- How many Test matches has India played?
- Which teams have played more than 600 Tests?
- Is India the first Asian team to play 600 Tests?
- What is India's record at Galle?
- Where was India's 500th Test played?
- Who is captaining India in their 600th Test?
Quick facts
- Match: Sri Lanka vs India, 1st Test
- Venue: Galle International Stadium, Galle
- Dates: 15–19 August 2026 (10:00 local / 04:30 GMT)
- Captain: Shubman Gill
- Competition: ICC World Test Championship 2025–27
- Second Test: Colombo (SSC), 23–27 August 2026
When is India’s 600th Test match?
The milestone game starts on Saturday 15 August 2026 in Galle, the opening Test of a two-match series in Sri Lanka. India’s most recent Test before it was against Afghanistan at New Chandigarh in June 2026, which left them on 599.
The tour game against a Sri Lanka Cricket XI in Colombo that began on 7 August.
What is India’s record after 599 Tests?
India arrived at the landmark with a record that tells the whole story of a team that spent decades learning and then a decade dominating. Across 599 tests, they have won 186, lost 188, drawn 224 and tied one – the famous Chennai tie against Australia in 1986.
| Matches | Won | Lost | Drawn | Tied | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 599 | 186 | 188 | 224 | 1 | 31.1% |
That two-match deficit in the win-loss column is the detail worth holding on to. India go into this series two wins away from levelling their all-time Test ledger for the first time in their history. A 2–0 result in Sri Lanka would make it 188 wins and 188 defeats. It is arithmetic rather than prophecy, but it is a nice thing to be chasing in your 600th game.
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Which teams have played 600 Test matches?
Only England and Australia have gone past 600 before now, and both had a 55-year head start — they played the first Test against each other in 1877. India, which did not appear until 1932, is the third club member and the first Asian side to arrive.
| Team | Tests | Won | Lost | Drawn | Tied |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 1,097 | 405 | 336 | 356 | 0 |
| Australia | 882 | 426 | 235 | 219 | 2 |
| India | 599 | 186 | 188 | 224 | 1 |
| West Indies | 596 | 187 | 224 | 184 | 1 |
Look at the bottom two rows. West Indies are on 596 — four behind. India get there first, but only just, and the two sides sit within a single win of each other on the all-time list. On a different fixture calendar this would have been a Caribbean story.
India took 84 years to reach 500. The next 100 took under a decade
This is the statistic that captures how much Indian cricket’s centre of gravity has shifted. India played their first Test at Lord’s on 25 June 1932. Their 500th came at Green Park, Kanpur on 22 September 2016, against New Zealand: a game India won by 197 runs. That first half-millennium took 84 years.
The next hundred Tests took nine years and ten months.
India should continue to play test cricket like that to keep it alive. The BCCI should try to make test cricket venues the same as England’s and Australia’s. That will help test cricket growth and lead to more financial benefits. Test cricket is the only format that is watched by loyal cricket fans.
India’s Test record at Galle
Here is the part that should worry Shubman Gill slightly. Galle has been India’s least forgiving ground in Sri Lanka. They have played five Tests there and lost three of them. No draws. Every India Test at Galle has produced a result.
| Date | Result |
|---|---|
| 14–17 Aug 2001 | Sri Lanka won by 10 wickets |
| 31 Jul–3 Aug 2008 | India won by 170 runs |
| 18–22 Jul 2010 | Sri Lanka won by 10 wickets |
| 12–15 Aug 2015 | Sri Lanka won by 63 runs |
| 26–29 Jul 2017 | India won by 304 runs |
Two of those three defeats were ten-wicket hammerings. The 2010 one was Muttiah Muralitharan’s farewell, he took his 800th and final Test wicket with the last ball he ever bowled in the format, on this ground, which is roughly the most Galle thing that has ever happened.
But the last visit went very differently, and it produced a coincidence that is hard to ignore. In July 2017 India batted first at Galle and were bowled out for exactly 600: Shikhar Dhawan 190, Cheteshwar Pujara 153. India won by 304 runs, their biggest victory over Sri Lanka by that measure.
So India’s 600th Test match will be played at the one ground where they have made exactly 600.
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India’s Test record in Sri Lanka
Across all their tours, India have played 24 Tests in Sri Lanka: nine wins, seven defeats, eight draws. In bilateral series terms it is dead level — eight series, three won by India, three won by Sri Lanka, two drawn.
| Year | Result |
|---|---|
| 1985 | Sri Lanka won 1–0 (3 Tests) |
| 1993 | India won 1–0 (3 Tests) |
| 1997 | Drawn 0–0 (2 Tests) |
| 2001 | Sri Lanka won 2–1 (3 Tests) |
| 2008 | Sri Lanka won 2–1 (3 Tests) |
| 2010 | Drawn 1–1 (3 Tests) |
| 2015 | India won 2–1 (3 Tests) |
| 2017 | India won 3–0 (3 Tests) |
Those eight series account for 23 Tests. The 24th was a one-off against Sri Lanka at Colombo (SSC) in February 1999, part of the Asian Test Championship, which was drawn.
India have not lost a Test series in Sri Lanka since 2008, when Ajantha Mendis announced himself on debut and India had no answer to him. The 2015 win under Virat Kohli was India’s first in Sri Lanka for 22 years; the 2017 sweep was their first 3–0 whitewash in any away series of three Tests or more.
The oddity is how long the gap has been. India’s last Test on Sri Lankan soil was at Pallekele in August 2017. Nine years is a long absence from a neighbouring country, and it means most of this squad has never played a red-ball international in Sri Lanka.
India’s squad for the 600th Test
The BCCI named a 15-man squad on 28 July, then revised it on 3 August. Jasprit Bumrah was ruled out after failing to recover fully from the left knee injury he picked up during the ODI series in England.
His replacement is the story worth telling. Auqib Nabi is the Jammu and Kashmir seamer who carried his state to its first Ranji Trophy title, and he arrives with a first-class return that made him impossible to ignore: 60 wickets in the 2025-26 season alone, and 104 across the last two. A recent India A trip to Sri Lanka means he has already bowled in these conditions.
India’s squad: Shubman Gill (c)*, KL Rahul (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant (wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Manav Suthar, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Gurnoor Brar, Devdutt Padikkal, Saransh Jain, Auqib Nabi. *subject to fitness clearance
Padikkal made a century in the Colombo tour match, which is a useful piece of timing for a batter who has spent a while on the edge of this side.
What is actually at stake beyond the milestone
Both teams are inside the 2025–27 World Test Championship cycle, so the points matter more than the round number does. Two Tests in spinning conditions against a Sri Lanka side at home is not a soft assignment, and India are doing it without their best fast bowler.
Milestone games have a way of being remembered for the result rather than the number, which India know from experience. The 500th, at Kanpur in 2016, was won by 197 runs with Ravindra Jadeja named player of the match. Jadeja is in this squad too.
Auqib Nabi, the pace bowler from Jammu and Kashmir, has chances of debuting in the 600th test of Team India.
FAQ
When will India play their 600th Test match?
On 15 August 2026, against Sri Lanka at Galle. The Test runs from 15 to 19 August.
How many Test matches has India played?
599 before the Galle Test — 186 wins, 188 defeats, 224 draws and one tie.
Which teams have played more than 600 Tests?
England (1,097) and Australia (882). India become the third team to reach 600, and West Indies are next on 596.
Is India the first Asian team to play 600 Tests?
Yes. No other Asian side is close — India began playing Tests in 1932, decades before Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh.
What is India’s record at Galle?
Five Tests, two wins, three defeats and no draws. Their last visit produced a 304-run win in 2017.
Where was India’s 500th Test played?
At Green Park, Kanpur, against New Zealand in September 2016. India won by 197 runs.
Who is captaining India in their 600th Test?
Shubman Gill*, with KL Rahul as vice-captain. *subject to fitness clearance
