What is the one thing more hopeless to defend than even the UPA government on 2G? It is to justify or even explain with any sympathy the downslide of Indian cricket. Eight successive overseas defeats, four of them by an innings, do not leave any scope for doubt. Within less than a year of winning the World Cup, therefore, this team is being called our worst in a long time, over the hill, tigers at home and lambs abroad, or, put more crudely but perhaps aptly, a case of apni gali mein kutta bhi sher hota hai (even a mongrel is a tiger in his own street). Mind you, however, that I used that word aptly quite deliberately. It wasn’t a slip.
That description is apt because it fairly describes the current power equation in world cricket. While we mourn our own loss of No 1 status, it might be comforting to know that this is an intriguing juncture in the history of world cricket where all the top teams (England, South Africa, India and Australia) fit that apni gali mein kutta bhi sher description. While the other regular Test-playing teams have fallen behind (though Pakistan is particularly unlucky, not having played any Tests at home in about three years), these top four have now been contenders for the top rankings. And where each one has ranked at various points of time over the past three years has been determined pretty much by how much Test cricket it has played at home or overseas, particularly against the other three in this A-League.
In essence, therefore, you can say that even if ranked No 1, no team, since the end of the Waugh era of Aussie dominance, has been good enough to defeat any of the other three in an away series. Corollary: unlike Australia under Steve Waugh and, in the more distant past, West Indies under Vivian Richards, there is no genuinely dominant team in world cricket today that could wallop all challengers in any place other than in its own street. In fact, so average (or evenly matched?) are the top four now that they even fail to maintain supremacy in neutral venues. The example of Pakistan’s 3-0 thrashing of England in Dubai/ Abu Dhabi in what was only technically its home series is the most recent. Even the mighty Australians only managed to draw an away series 1-1 against Pakistan even though it was played in England.
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As the accompanying chart, put together by my colleague Nihal Koshie (Assistant Editor in our sports bureau), tells us, over the past four years, the top Test cricket rankings are more a function of who wins more convincingly at home, and loses less often overseas, rather than winning home and away. That’s why Australia began to slide from their No 1 spot, rapidly surrendering a large lead on the ICC points tally as they began to lose overseas with a 2-0 loss to India in 2008. Just two series defeats at home then, by England and South Africa, saw them moving towards No 5 at one stage since they could not mostly win overseas against any of the top three. Similarly, a bunch of home wins and the decline of Australia briefly gave South Africa the top spot which they failed to regain when they drew 1-1 in India in 2009, and India, in turn, retained it by ensuring a drawn series in South Africa in 2010-11. Then just one Ashes win overseas and a series of home wins catapulted England to the top spot. And after their walloping by Pakistan, England must hope that South Africa do not beat New Zealand next month as that would make them lose the top ranking even before they could savour it for six months. India’s own climb to the top began with a phase after that 2001 turnaround against Australia when they lost just one series at home against Australia in 2004 in an entire decade. In this decade India rose to No 1, and stayed there for a remarkable 19 months, despite only once having beaten one of the other three in an away series England in 2007-08. But it won most of the series at home, and managed to draw one each in South Africa and Australia. India’s return climb to the top, therefore, may resume now, with so much cricket to be played at home, particularly against England, Australia and New Zealand.
You can extend the same logic to individual performances. Graeme Swann, and before that Shane Warne post-2002, have taken more wickets on home pitches than on the more spin-friendly ones in the subcontinent. Similarly, Indian medium-pacers, notably Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma, have had better strike rate on the dead home pitches where many foreign fast bowlers have wished their mausoleums to be built than on the green-tops overseas. It is also an era when the finest of the batsmen (Tendulkar, Ponting, Dravid, Sehwag, Laxman, Clarke, Kallis, Pietersen) have had much, much lower averages overseas (counting only the four dominant cricketing powers) than at home.
In world cricket, this is the era of the home bully, or apni gali ka sher. Nothing would bring any redemption for Indian cricket at this point, but this should put its plight in perspective. So also the talk that our cricketers suffer overseas, on seaming, bouncier pitches because we spoil them on low, slow and home-spun tracks. If that is the case, why do our fast bowlers do better at home than overseas? And why can’t great batsmen of the other leading teams take advantage of the same flat conditions?
The fact is, world cricket today is bereft of batting or even bowling talent that could dominate in all conditions. The glitz and hype of T20 leagues probably mask this fact as it makes so many batsmen look like supermen. But it is a period when no team is capable of winning in alien conditions and who reaches the top and stays there for how long is for now a function of home-and-away statistics. But does it also explain the scale and consistency of the recent Indian defeats? Maybe the answer lies in the fact that marauding home fast bowlers in green, bouncy conditions give much less of a chance to the opposing batsmen to survive and at least hold off for an odd draw than the flat subcontinental wickets would. But the theory, that batsmen of England, Australia and South Africa would struggle as hopelessly on genuine turners as ours did on rank green-tops, needs to be given a test later this year. Not just that, as the Pakistan-England series in the UAE showed, the moment a team built around three pacemen is forced to play two spinners and only two pacemen, necessitated by our conditions, it upsets an entire gameplan. Just as it does when our teams, on visits overseas, are forced to play three seamers and one spinner. In each case, you play to the other’s strength and, today, none of the four leading teams has the firepower to get over that loss of home advantage. That is why, the BCCI should bury all thought of bouncy wickets later this year and return to rank turners. It may be worthwhile checking who is the sher in this gali after all.
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