India’s dominance at home masks struggle outside favourable environs. Yes, this is certainly true of the Indian cricket team. India have been exceptionally dominant at home over the last 20 years. Not even Australia can claim to be that invincible at home and neither can England or South Africa. As for rest of the international sides, the less said the better. Such has been India’s dominance at home that Steve Waugh termed India as the last frontier.
A bit of statistics to prove the point
Since the beginning of the millennium, India have hosted all the countries and it includes Pakistan as well. This is across all the formats, Tests, ODIs and T20s. This is over 20 long years of international cricket at home. During this period, India have won 58 Tests and have lost just 12 in 97 games. That is an impressive record. If I have to take a look at the number of series played and won, it translates to 28 Wins, 3 Loss, 5 Drawn out of a total of 36 series. The win-loss ratio is almost 5. 4.83. This is nothing but outstanding record. Forget the number of games or series won, to lose only 3 series when Australia & South Africa were at their peak is just incredible.
During the same period, Australia have lost 5 series. 3 against South Africa, 1 each against India & England. England have lost 5 series as well. 1 each against Australia, India and incredibly, Sri Lanka and a couple against South Africa for a win-loss ratio of 2.52. South Africa have lost 7 series with Australia being their chief tormentor. New Zealand have lost 5 as well. So, all the top teams have a win-loss ratio of less than 3 at home over the last 20 years whereas India’s is upwards to 4. Here I am talking only about Test cricket because the limited overs games were way too many played during the period and it does not always show the real picture. This utter dominance at home seems to have affected the players, the board and the fans equally.
Effect on the board of such domination
The BCCI seems to be the biggest beneficiary of such a dominance at home. It is quite well known that the Indian cricket stadium are some of the biggest in terms of capacity though the grounds are smaller. Most of the grounds can easily accommodate 35K to 40K every day at a minimum. That is a huge number when compared to grounds in South Africa or England that can accommodate only upto 25K to 30K. Added to this, the following for the game in the country is enormous.
Every game may not be followed from the stadium but the number of viewers watching on TV and the number of fans who follow the game in social media is extremely high. Fans do love when India perform well and win games. A win actually motivates the followers to follow more games. There isn’t a bigger motivator for a fan to follow the game than accomplishments of the Indian national team.
For an Indian, who seldom gets to celebrate sporting achievements in other games and in multi-sporting events like Asian Games & Olympics, success in the cricket field satiates that desire. As a result, advertisers flock to the network to advertise their products and this ends in the board earning in millions. Unfortunately, the board does not seem to care about the status of the team amongst great teams of the past and present. They do not care if the team performs miserably outside Asia so long as it is eradicated from the memory of the fans. The board always ensures that a home series follows a tour to any of the SENA countries so that the Indian team can come back to winning ways and the performance in the previous tour is quickly forgotten.
Effect on the players
The effect on the Indian players because of such dominance at home is much more profound. The Indian batsmen score quite heavily against the opposition bowlers. In most of the games, the opposition either do not have bowlers who can take advantage of the prevailing conditions or they do not have enough quality in their attack. Take the case of Mayank Agarwal. Just before the Australian series in 2020, he had score a couple of double hundreds. This was against South Africa albeit at home. However, the same Agarwal is struggling against Australia in Australia. Same is the case with Prithvi Shaw. He scored a hundred on debut but is a sitting duck in Australia and New Zealand.
The Indians are super confident when they play in India against any kind of attack. They know that the ball will not raise dangerously and the opponents do not have excellent spinners either. Ofcourse, there were exceptions like the 2007 series against England when Swann & Panesar toyed with the Indian batting. In general, the opponents aren’t good enough to challenge the Indian batsmen in India. Added to that, the success of Ashwin, Jadeja, Kumble and other spinners and the not so good technique of the opposition against spin have ensured that the Indian team wins games rather easily.
The Indian team didn’t require a great deal of technique or perseverance to score runs or pick up wicket. This seems to have given the team a false sense of security or rather subconsciously, they know that the conditions will be far different to what they are used to in India and as a result neither is able to play freely nor is able to restrict the opposition to below the Indian team’s score.
Effect on the fans
The effect on the fans is rather soul crushing. Back in my childhood, 70s-90s, I never expected India to win outside the country. Mainly, because they were never this dominant at home. However,from the beginning of the millennium because of the dominance showed by the Indian team, all of us started to increase our expectations. Even a test win outside of India was considered extraordinary. Then came series wins in Sri Lanka, West Indies and Pakistan and a few wins in England & New Zealand. Miraculously, India won the 2007 series in England and expectations increased manifold. Now, India was not only expected to compete but win series in the SENA countries.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. Post 2007 was a traumatic period for every Indian fan. Successive losses and humiliating at that in the SENA countries brought us down from our pedestal. After the debilitating lowest score at Adelaide, we have been firmly brought to the ground. Perhaps, the Indian team achieved the success in early 2000s because of once in a lifetime players who played at the same time. It is time we the fans reduce our expectation and set them firmly in the pre-2000 era.
Others topics related to Indian cricket can be read here, here, here and here.