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Profit and loss

After India's debacle against Zimbabwe, I wanted to go back in time and check how many times India was out for low scores, and how many times the opposition had made high scores. Which in turn leads to a few conclusions about India's performance on away tours over the last seven decades.

Note that all these tours are to non-sub continental pitches, therefore, tours to Pakistan and Sri Lanka are omitted. I looked at the following parameters for the evaluation:

1. Percentage of innings in which the Indian team scored less than 200 runs in an innings. This typically determines the pressure that can be put on the team. If this was in the second innings, the chances are in all probability that the team lost the match.

2. Percentage of innings in which the Indian team scored less than 250 runs. Any time a team scores more than 250, its chances of either pulling off a win, or a draw, increase, hence this criterion.

3. Percentage of opposition innings above 400. This determines our bowling strength. The higher this percentage, the weaker the Indian bowling attack.

4. The rest of the parameters are number of Tests lost, won, series lost and won.

Decade     Indian Innings   Opp Innings Test       Series
                                        Matches
         ~<200   ~<250 Runs  ~>400runs  Lost Won  Lost Won

1930's  4/8  50%  6/8  75%   2/7  28%   3/4   0     1   0
1940's  8/15 53%  9/15 60%   4/10 40%   5/8   0     2   0
1950's 12/27 44% 16/27 59%   6/22 27%   9/14  0     3   0
1960's  9/32 28% 16/32 50%   6/28 21%  12/16  3     4   1
1970's 10/45 22% 20/45 44%  11/48 22%  10/28  6     4   3
1980's 10/42 23% 17/42 40%  13/39 33%   8/24  3     4   1
1990's 13/47 27% 17/47 36%   7/53 13%  12/29  0     8   0

~ stands for approximately that score +/- 10 runs.

The above leads to some observations:

1. Before the 1970's we lost more than 75% of the Test matches played in, having won only 3 out of 42 Tests, and one out of 6 series.

2. Before the 1970s, each series was at least 4 Test matches long, and thus helped players get used to the pitches, environment, etc. Even then, we lost 29/42 test matches played. There was no one-day cricket during this period.

3. Our batting was quite weak, having scored less than 200 in 33 out of 82 innings, and less than 250 in 47 out of 82 innings. Our bowling in the 1940's was also weak as the opposition scored more than 400 in 40% of the innings they played.

4. We could only draw 10 out of 42 Test matches played.

All of the above was before Sunil Gavaskar came into the picture. He played his cricket for most of the 1970's and 1980's. His influence on Indian cricket and his contribution will be evident from the statistics below. There was a character to the team being led by the two legends of Indian cricket, Gavaskar and Kapil. The teams were most stable during these two decades in terms of opening pairs, and bowlers.

1. In 1970's and 1980's we lost 34% of Test matches played. We won 9 Test matches out of 52, and 4 out of 8 Test series.

2. Each Test series was at least 4 matches long, and thus helped players get used to the pitches, environment, etc. But we lost only 9/52 Test matches. One-day cricket was just making its presence felt.

3. Our batting was solid with Gavaskar. Only in 20/87 innings did we score less than 200 runs, and in 37/87 innings, less than 250 runs. Our bowling was also okay, as the opposition scored more than 400 runs in only 24/87 innings.

4. But we drew 25 out of 52 Test matches. This improvement is mainly due to Gavaskar staying at the crease for longer durations. Also, it is due to his captaincy in away tours, wherein he did not take many risks. Overall, the 1970s and 1980s were the best decades for us. Further, the spin quartet and Kapil Dev helped India win many of the away Test matches. In the 1980s we won only one Test away -- just one more than what we did in the 1990s till now, with no Gavaskar, and Kapil just chugging along.

In the 1990s we were mostly led by Azharuddin and Tendulkar. There is no Gavaskar, Kapil was not as effective as he was in the 1980s. The opening pair was never as stable as before, neitehr was the bowling. There are no legends in this team, with the possible exception of Sachin Tendulkar. And even SRT could not win a match single-handedly, abroad. He and Azhar might have brought India close to winning, but we never did manage to go the distance. It was during this time that Dalmia came to power, and schedules, itineraries started getting messier, more weightage was given to ODIs, and long Test tours became history.

I would put the blame on the Indian cricket board for the way things were handled during this phase, rather than on any single player or even on the captain.

1. In the 1990's we have lost 12/29 away Test matches -- that is 40% of all Tests played. We won none, and lost 8 Test series.

In the period 1970-1980, we played 12 Test series. That is, we played 75% of the Test series played in the last two decades, in just 8 years. And for both Azhar and SRT. their first few Test series as captain were away tours.

2. Each Test series was now about 3 Test matches, many of them just one-offs, and with few practise games to help players acclimatise. Also, more ODIs were being mixed with Test matches, and there was very little time to get used to local conditions, and pitches.

3. Our batting had 13/47 innings of less than 200 runs, and 17/47 innings of less than 250 innings, but lacked the presence of batsmen who could occupy the crease for long periods. Primarily, this is because Azharuddin and SRT, who led the Indian batting in this period, are fast-scoring players who, however, do not bat for appreciable lengths of time. The problem with this is evident if you look at the second away Test against South Africa last year where India scored 340+ in five sessions. Had the scoring been a shade slower, had the batsmen hung in there longer, had that 340+ come in say 7 hours, the Test would have been saved. Meanwhile, in this period, the opposition made scores over 400 runs in only in 7 out of 53 innings.

4. We drew 17/29, that is, 58% of the Test matches (higher than the 48% during 70s and 80s). Thus if you look at the score-cards, you will find that what we lacked is the ability to bowl out the opposition twice in a Test match for low scores. We could do this in the 1970s and 1980s, but we could not do so often enough in the 1990s. Also, many of the drawn or lost Test matches were close enough for India to have won -- which underlines the lack of killer instinct in the side.

One final point: over 68 years of Test cricket we have only won 5 out 26 Test series in England, South Africa, Australia, West Indies, New Zealand, and Zimbabwe. We have won twice against England, once against West Indies and twice against New Zealand. The lack of ability to win against these countries in away tours is decades old, and it has not been solved.

As many say, we do not have appropriate pitches, personalities, body strength, physical training, and determination to do so.

This is a quick, at a glance analysis, the platform for others to do their finer evaluation. The raw data is available from www.khel.com. Further, some of the numbers were calculated in a hurry, and mistakes could have crept in. But on the whole, the above conclusions should hold.

Comments?

Rediff adds: Kamal Karlepalem is a Rediff regular, and this article was contributed on a freelance basis.