The much-awaited England vs. India 5-Test match series begins on Wednesday (August 1) with the first match at Edgbaston. The drier pitches due to the heat wave in England have seemed to tilt the game in favor of Indian spinners.

Former India skipper Rahul Dravid, who was the last Indian captain to win a Test series in England in 2007, backed the bowlers as the main reason for the team’s wins. He disagreed with the common notion that batsmen will be the key to the victory in Test series.

“I think my fondest memory is that of walking out at Lord’s being an Indian test player for the first time. I think that’s, you know for me, that’s something that, it was a dream come true and the thing I dreamt of,” he told BBC 5.

“One of the important things is how quickly you adapt to the conditions. When we won here it was a three-match test series, so you couldn’t afford to start badly. The five-match series you have a little bit more time I guess, to get into it,” the India U19 coach said.

India will be missing the services of Bhuvneshwar Kumar for three Tests and Jasprit Bumrah for the opening Test match of the series. The onus of winning the match will fall on the likes of Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, and Ishant Sharma.

Rahul Dravid talked about the fitness of the Indian bowlers and said, “But I think the important this is, and I do think the India team has a good chance here but the key will be the ability to take 20 wickets and does India have the ability to take 20 wickets. I have no doubt that we will score runs at some stage, but the key is to keep our fast bowlers fit and we’ve got a good crop of young fast bowlers, its five test matches in 6 weeks.”

“When we won here in 2007 the same fast bowlers played all the three matches and we were lucky that nobody got injured and I think that made a big difference,” he further mentioned.

When asked to predict the winner of the Test series, Rahul Dravid backed the Indian team to win the series 2-1.