Kridaya Cricket Blog

India just marked their 100th Test victory with a thumping win against Sri Lanka. It was interesting reading the statistics of India’s Test history.

India is the nation that has taken the most number of matches (432) to reach 100 Test wins. The previous entry was Pakistan at 320 Tests. Sri Lanka have 60 wins in 191 matches and surely should make it before 300. Of course, they had a lot of help from Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, but still.

The only other nation likely to ever reach 100 wins is New Zealand who have 66 wins from 354 matches and are sure to beat India’s record. Bangladesh (3 wins from 61 matches) has a loooooooong way to go!

India has made a lot of strides in this decade, with more wins abroad than in the rest of their history. Many reasons, but a few I can think of: Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy, Rahul Dravid’s form abroad, Kumble turning around his overseas form, India holding their own against Australia in Australia, the decline of the West Indies, England no longer a threat, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe.

On the other hand, India has had a few setbacks at home. They lost a series against Australia after decades. They have conceded matches against South Africa, England and Pakistan. More aggression at home would have made Win #100 come earlier. We haven’t seen a whitewash for sometime now.

What was the difference between the India of the 1st Test against Sri Lanka and the India of the 2nd Test?

OK, I will wait while you compare the two scorecards.

The only difference was Mishra and Sharma went out, and Ojha and Sreesanth came in.

The batting pretty much clicked in both matches, but the main difference was the bowling.

It bears repeating. Batsmen do not win matches. Bowlers do.

From 1990 to 2000, recall how many matches did India win when Kumble (or Harbhajan) were on fire. How many did they win when neither clicked?

As a nation, we are too obsessed with the big-hitters and ton-makers. Spare a thought for the hard workers who convert the zero in a Test series to natural numbers.

What in the world has happened to the Indian cricket team? Before the series, I thought an Indian whitewash was a slam dunk. Instead, I look at a 165-run deficit with Sri Lanka still having 5 wickets in hand, and I cannot see how India is going to perform a rescue act.

But for Dravid’s huge ton on the first day, India would have already been sunk. Amazing!

I plead guilty to mocking Sri Lanka throughout this year for their meaningless triumphs against Bangladesh. But this year has really been a turnaround year for them. Beating Pakistan and New Zealand at home and before that, a good performance in a truncated series in Pakistan. And no single person responsible. A true team effort.

I still hope India can save this match. But Sri Lanka has all the cards. A hundred runs more and India will have to work really hard to avoid losing by an innings.

Which of the three formats of cricket do you like best?

• Tests
• One-dayers
• Twenty20

Click here to answer the question.

If anyone was expecting the Indian team to be behaving different on this tour of New Zealand, they would have been disappointed, but not surprised. If India was Australia’s Final Frontier, then New Zealand is India’s Collective Train Wreck. Not withstanding the Kiwi’s recent tendency to drag matches to the last over, this was a comprehensive defeat of India in both matches.

There is no silver lining in the results of these T20 matches, however Dhoni may think the opposite. No new player has broken out of the pack. Most of the batsmen played poorly and that will give them little confidence for the one-day matches. These Twenty20 matches, by their very nature, offer little practice for the ODI matches, serving mostly as entertainment for fans.

We had previously posted about the different India squads for the three forms of matches that would be played. The one person selected only for T20’s, Ravindra Jadeja, got a single look-in for the 2nd Twenty20 match, and is probably on a plane home.

The one-dayers may provide more time for the Indian team to accustom themselves to the conditions. However, 6 members of the Test squad are not in the ODI team and two of them (Laxman and Dravid) will definitely be playing without any exposure to the real match environment in New Zealand. Tendulkar, although included for the ODIs, is unlikely to play most of them.

Therefore, I am not too sanguine about the potential of India carrying the Test series. Of course, there are 3 Tests and a more confident Indian team, so anything could still happen. New Zealand hasn’t announced their Test squad yet. Once that is available, we will try another analysis based on the team composition and ODI performances.

[Photo licensed from lensmate]

In one word, “bowling”. Take a look at the runs per wicket for each innings in the last few matches by Australia (in reverse chronological order):

Test #1904: 32.70,  27.20 (v SA)
Test #1902: 45.90, 183.00 (v SA)
Test #1899: 28.10, 103.50 (v SA)
Test #1896: 27.00,  20.30 (v NZ)
Test #1894: 15.60,  17.70 (v NZ)
Test #1892: 44.10,  29.50 (v India)
Test #1891: 61.30,  41.60 (v India)
Test #1889: 46.90, 104.67 (v India)
Test #1887: 36.00,  44.25 (v India)
Test #1879: 21.60,  38.70 (v WI)
Test #1877: 35.20,  53.20 (v WI)
Test #1875: 31.20,  19.10 (v WI) 

Only thrice in the last 12 Tests has Austrlia been able to bowl the opposition out for less than 200. In 7 of those Tests, their bowling in the 2nd innings has been worse than the bowling in the first innings, even though the pitch conditions should be more favorable to their bowlers. This explains how they were not even able to defend the huge target of 414 they had set for South Africa in the Perth Test.

West Indies were able to draw against the Australians and keep them out for large periods of the matches. In the last Test of their series, the West Indies made a tremendous effort of 387 against the huge 475 run target. If there had been a large century-maker, they would have walked away with a Test series draw. One should also not forget also how Sri Lanka made 410 chasing Australia’s 507 runs and may have got there if Sangakkara had not been wrongfully dismissed. 

Australian batting has not been terrible, although not upto their earlier standards. But the bowling definitely needs a close lookup, even if Australia starts winning matches on the strength of their batting. The most recent match by Australia, against the SA Board Presidents XI shows that the bowling has not improved much, allowing a first-class team to post 403/7 declared. 

Somewhere, that should be turning on warning bells.

Several years ago, teams used to play Test series of 3 to 6 matches each, or they would play a 1-off Test. In recent times, the 2-Test series has become more prevalent, especially with series involving Bangladesh and New Zealand. I think it is a stupid idea and here’s why.

Let’s say that Team A wins the first Test. This means that they cannot lose the series. So the only thing left for the other team is to draw the series by winning the 2nd Test. On the other hand, if it was a 3-Test series, both teams have an incentive to win the 2nd Test, Team A to win the series outright and Team B to tie it to set up the 3rd Test for a series decider. The 2-Test series only has a series decider if the first Test is a draw. 

Also, the 2 Test series prevents a comeback victory for Team B. Think of the 2001 India-Australia series. If it was a 2-Test series, the amazing Indian return-from-the-jaws-of-defeat would have resulted in a 1-1 draw and not set up the thrilling finale.

The following table shows the success %age of the Test nations in the most recent home series against other nations. Bangladesh is not included in this chart.

Until the recent Australia-SA series, Australia had a 100% success rate, but they are now level with India who is the only team to have not lost a series at home. All teams, except NZ and WI, are strong with home with England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka having similar records. West Indies remain the only team not to have won a single series at home in recent times, a far cry from their dominance in the 80’s. 

Home Series Success Percentages of Cricket Test Teams in 2008

             Wins   Draws  Losses    Success %
Australia       6       0       1       85.71%
India           5       2       0       85.71%
South Africa    5       0       2       71.43%
England         4       1       2       64.29%
Pakistan        4       1       2       64.29%
Sri Lanka       4       1       2       64.29%
New Zealand     1       3       3       35.71%
West Indies     0       2       5       14.29%

What a Test debut for Jean-Paul Duminy. In his first match, he remained unbeaten with a 50 as South Africa overhauled a massive target of 414 runs against Australia. And yesterday, he added 318 runs with the 4 tail-enders to gain a vital lead for South Africa. At the close of the 2nd day, the consensus was that South Africa would fold up quickly with a huge deficit, so no one could even imagine a lead. The latest star in the SA team could not have scripted a better start to his career.

Duminy’s stunning effort has placed Australia in a huge dilemma. Only 6 sessions remain in the match and they are behind. If they try for the win by slogging their way to a big target, they could very easily lose wickets and be fighting to save the match. On the other hand, if they bat sensibly, they would have to bat for at least 4 sessions, but then have only 60-odd overs to bowl South Africa out. Which probably is not going to happen, considering the depth of the South African batting.

This series has exposed how deep a hole the retirements of Warne and McGrath has left Australia in. For a while, it seemed that Lee was turning into the main spearhead of the Australian attack, but his improved performances were just a random blip. In the current series, he has taken 1 wicket while conceding 200 runs. Stuart Clark, injured, is out of the picture and, at 33 years, not the best long-term prospect for Australia. Let us not even talk about the Australian spinners.

However, all this is good for cricket. It is boring when you have one team dominating all the others, like how Australia used to do. Now, South Africa and India are closing (or have closed) the gap with Australia and we can look forward to more interesting contests. More of that and less of the mind-numbing whitewashes.