Advantage at home: Are teams bucking the trend?
England, New Zealand and India have recently won Tests away from home
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 Lank a 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.
Australia’sbattingisconsider- ably weakened in the absence of Steve Smith and David Warner, but their bowling attack is formidable. Moreover, history tells us how difficult it is to beat them at home.
In 1977-78, Australia won the series 3-2 despite being ravaged by the Packer Circus. Their captain was 42-year-old Bobby Simpson brought out of retirement, with Jeff Thomson the only star player. India were at full strength.
In 1985-86, a rookie Australian side under Allan Border denied a formidable Indian team a series win again. Strength on paper, therefore, does not count for much.
So what explains the slew of current results against home teams?
One big factor could be that unlike in the 1970s and 80s when West Indies ruled Test cricket, and 1995 to 2007 when Australia were top of the pops, no one team has been dominant.
In the past decade, the top fivesix teams have been vying for top honours consistently. But the pattern has generally been brilliant at home, stragglers away.
If that is showing signs of changing now, it is because coaches, captains, players have become alert to the fact that succeeding overseas is making a difference to rankings, reputations and rewards.
Frequent interaction between players and coaches, through under-19 and senior tours and various T20 leagues, is not just familiarising players with different conditions, but also leading to transfer of vital information, tips and skills that wasn’t available earlier.
CHANGING MINDSETS
This is changing mind-sets, coaching methods and impacting team selections. New Zealand, for instance, took three spinners to UAE, unheard of in their cricket.
England cajoled Adil Rashid to return to the five-day format against India, played three spinners and three wicket-keepers in a Test against Sri Lanka, and also dared to disrupt the partnership between their best wicket-takers, James Anderson and Stuart Broad.
(The necessary caveat in experimentation is that this must be done smartly, not thoughtlessly, as India have done at times in pursuit of aggression. In the first Test against England this year, they omitted Adelaide hero Cheteshwar Pujara because of a supposed tardy strike rate. This had been done earlier too, in Sri Lanka in 2015.
Both times, Pujara returned to score invaluable centuries. As far strike rate is concerned, he scores at 46.89 per 100 balls. To put this in perspective, Rahul Dravid’s career strike rate was 42.51, V V S Laxman’s 49.37.)
Perhaps the biggest influence has been that since almost 75 per cent Test matches are decided these days, captains, coaches and players have realised that hoping to escape with draws in overseas matches has become counterproductive. They are better off playing for a win.
As said, the sample size is still too say whether recent results are a co-incidence or a trend. However, if India win this series, which will be their first-ever in Australia, there may be good reason to ratify the hypothesis.