Kohli’s boys continue to show heart and dominance at home
MUMBAI: India cruised to a record victory over West Indies inside three days at Rajkot and look set to wrap up the two-match series in an equally dominating fashion as the sides head to Hyderabad for the second Test. A win in Hyderabad will see India record their 10th consecutive Test series win at home since their loss to England in 2012-13.
BEST OF THE LOT
India have played 28 Tests since that 2-1 loss, and have won an astounding 22 of them, while drawing five. The only loss came against Australia in Pune last year, when left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe picked 12 wickets as India lost by 333 runs.
India have a success rate of 87.5% in this period, just a bit better than Australia (83.33 per cent) who have played 27 matches at home and won 20 of them. The only two Tests they lost had resulted in their series defeat to South Africa. England, who’ve played the most number of Tests at home have also lost the most games — 11 out of 42 — in this period and have a poorer success rate than South Africa (75%) and New Zealand (72%).
A STRONG UNIT
India has been a tough place to tour. While Virat Kohli has been sensational with the bat across all formats around the world, the likes of Rohit Sharma (769 runs in nine matches at 85.44) and Cheteshwar Pujara (2477 runs in 28 matches) have made it count in familiar conditions.
It is similar in the bowling department where the likes of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have run riot. Ashwin has featured in all home games in this period while Jadeja, who has played 26 matches and is the second-most successful bowler after Ashwin, is also India’s fifth highest run-getter with 910 runs.
AWAY WOES CONTINUE
However, India are yet to match Clive Lloyd’s all-conquering West Indies or Steve Waugh’s world-beating Australians. They have toured abroad 10 times but have lost six series, including the recent 4-1 drubbing to England. In fact, three of their series wins came against weak sides like Sri Lanka (twice) and West Indies. They have a tough away series in Australia and they will be expected to raise the bar. Barring Ireland and Zimbabwe, who languish at the bottom of the rankings, no team has a success rate of less than 50 per cent at home. So while the home wins sound sweet, it’s the away series wins that turn a team into a world-class unit.