AYAZ MEMON

The past few weeks have thrown up an interesting dynamic in Test cricket. England whitewashed Sri Lanka 3-0, New Zealand beat Pakistan 2-1 in a thrilling contest and India eked out a hard-fought, 31-run victory over Australia at Adelaide.

What makes these results fascinating is that they’ve been achieved overseas. ‘Home advantage’ has been the bane of the fiveday format in the past decade odd, what with doctored pitches etc, making matches and results predictable, robbing Test cricket of flavour.

For the record, England had not won a Test series in Sri Lanka since 2001, and never ever made a clean sweep. New Zealand hadn’t beaten Pakistan in an away series in 49 years. India had never won the first Test of a series in Australia.

The sample size is too small to describe this as a trend just yet, but there is a whiff of something new brewing which could give Test cricket a different trajectory going ahead.

TIGERS AT HOME

Skeptics will argue that these results for England, New Zealand and India have come against teams in turmoil or in disarray and therefore highly vulnerable. But that is a half-truth at best.

While Sri Lankan cricket has been wobbly for a few years, compounded with multiple captaincy changes , they had yet decimated Australia 3-0 (2016) and South Africa 2-0 this year at home.

Pakistan had made themselves near invincible in the UAE. The pressure was entirely on New Zealand, not so much to win, but put up a decent show. In the event, despite Yasir Shah taking a whopping 29 wickets, Pakistan lost.