Do not deride solid home performances but beware of the euphoria of a whitewash

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More... Why do we deride solid home performances? Dileep Premachandran There have been two distinct reactions to India's emphatic win over England in the first game of a five-match one-day series. Some, taking their cue from a brain-dead ad calling it the Payback Series, went into gloat mode, conveniently forgetting two months of summer humiliation. Others were just blasé. So India won at home. So what? Big deal. This disparaging of home success is frankly perplexing. Look back at the history of sport and there's not one great team that hasn't built its foundations on being near invincible at home. Barcelona and Manchester United are so successful partly because the Nou Camp and Old Trafford are impregnable fortresses. Australia dominated cricket for so long mainly because they didn't lose a Test series at home between 1992-93 and 2008-09. When England embarrassed India in both Tests and one-day internationals earlier this year, the games weren't being played on Mars. They were played in conditions that England were far more comfortable with than the visitors were. Unlike football, where the partisan crowd is the main difference between playing home and away, cricket really does pose unique challenges for teams on the road. No amount of video analysis or net sessions can substitute for intimate knowledge of the conditions, of the vagaries of pace, swing and bounce. It's also a myth that India were always formidable at home. In the 1980s, the decade when the World Cup was won for the first time, India lost more than they won (29-33) on home turf. In the 1990s, with the advent of Tendulkar and other members of the golden generation, those numbers improved to 52-28. In the first decade of the new millennium, it was 56-43, figures skewed by 15 losses to a rampant Australian side that won three World Cups and two Champions Trophies in succession. Since January 2010 though, India have won 15 and lost just two at home, a remarkable run that included a World Cup campaign that went from slow burn to incendiary by the time M.S. Dhoni struck the winning six high into Mumbai's night sky. Why that should be belittled is beyond me. When the West Indies won 25 and lost only three at home during the 1980s, did anyone scoff and mutter darkly about home advantage? Dhoni's nous and hitting prowess were to the fore as India doubled their total in the final 15 overs. With two new balls used in accordance with changed playing conditions, there was far more circumspection early on, but the batsmen who stayed long enough to gauge the low bounce and sluggish pace of the pitch capitalised fully in the final stages. As Mike Selvey wrote in The Guardian, "England may, with some justification, laud the hitting ability of [Jonny] Bairstow, but the capacity of Dhoni to make bowlers look foolish is on a different level altogether." It wasn't just about hitting either. Several of the English batsmen played with hard hands, the sort of approach that has consistently got Ricky Ponting into trouble in these conditions. There was also nothing like the bat speed that Dhoni and Suresh Raina did so much damage with. And most tellingly, batsmen tended to walk towards the ball rather than dance. Just as the technical limitations of young Indian batsmen were exposed in England, so this tour will be a severe test of England's ability to adapt to slow and low surfaces. Despite greater A team tours and other kinds of exposure, each group is far more at ease in the conditions that they grew up in. Last winter, while in South Africa, I watched Rilee Roussow, a promising young Eagles batsman, struggle horribly against second-rate spin in a domestic tournament. It was as macabre a sight as Raina being peppered with short balls in England. Yet, a weakness against spin is not considered the same as frailty against pace, which usually leads to a batsman's courage being questioned. No matter how many task forces are appointed, Indian pitches are not going to become dead ringers for the WACA in Perth. Playing on them and winning is also a supreme test of skill. The great teams, like the 1983 West Indies and the 2004 Aussies, passed it. If beating India in India is now a cricketing Labour of Hercules, that's something to be proud of.

[surajmal]

An innate need to deride self (a very Indian quality) and channel the white man's beliefs (sign of a colonized mind).

[Sooda]

too frakin right DP

[Cricket Tragic]

More... Why do we deride solid home performances? Dileep Premachandran There have been two distinct reactions to India's emphatic win over England in the first game of a five-match one-day series. Some, taking their cue from a brain-dead ad calling it the Payback Series, went into gloat mode, conveniently forgetting two months of summer humiliation. Others were just blasé. So India won at home. So what? Big deal. This disparaging of home success is frankly perplexing. Look back at the history of sport and there's not one great team that hasn't built its foundations on being near invincible at home. Barcelona and Manchester United are so successful partly because the Nou Camp and Old Trafford are impregnable fortresses. Australia dominated cricket for so long mainly because they didn't lose a Test series at home between 1992-93 and 2008-09. When England embarrassed India in both Tests and one-day internationals earlier this year, the games weren't being played on Mars. They were played in conditions that England were far more comfortable with than the visitors were. Unlike football, where the partisan crowd is the main difference between playing home and away, cricket really does pose unique challenges for teams on the road. No amount of video analysis or net sessions can substitute for intimate knowledge of the conditions, of the vagaries of pace, swing and bounce. It's also a myth that India were always formidable at home. In the 1980s, the decade when the World Cup was won for the first time, India lost more than they won (29-33) on home turf. In the 1990s, with the advent of Tendulkar and other members of the golden generation, those numbers improved to 52-28. In the first decade of the new millennium, it was 56-43, figures skewed by 15 losses to a rampant Australian side that won three World Cups and two Champions Trophies in succession. Since January 2010 though, India have won 15 and lost just two at home, a remarkable run that included a World Cup campaign that went from slow burn to incendiary by the time M.S. Dhoni struck the winning six high into Mumbai's night sky. Why that should be belittled is beyond me. When the West Indies won 25 and lost only three at home during the 1980s, did anyone scoff and mutter darkly about home advantage? Dhoni's nous and hitting prowess were to the fore as India doubled their total in the final 15 overs. With two new balls used in accordance with changed playing conditions, there was far more circumspection early on, but the batsmen who stayed long enough to gauge the low bounce and sluggish pace of the pitch capitalised fully in the final stages. As Mike Selvey wrote in The Guardian, "England may, with some justification, laud the hitting ability of [Jonny] Bairstow, but the capacity of Dhoni to make bowlers look foolish is on a different level altogether." It wasn't just about hitting either. Several of the English batsmen played with hard hands, the sort of approach that has consistently got Ricky Ponting into trouble in these conditions. There was also nothing like the bat speed that Dhoni and Suresh Raina did so much damage with. And most tellingly, batsmen tended to walk towards the ball rather than dance. Just as the technical limitations of young Indian batsmen were exposed in England, so this tour will be a severe test of England's ability to adapt to slow and low surfaces. Despite greater A team tours and other kinds of exposure, each group is far more at ease in the conditions that they grew up in. Last winter, while in South Africa, I watched Rilee Roussow, a promising young Eagles batsman, struggle horribly against second-rate spin in a domestic tournament. It was as macabre a sight as Raina being peppered with short balls in England. Yet, a weakness against spin is not considered the same as frailty against pace, which usually leads to a batsman's courage being questioned. No matter how many task forces are appointed, Indian pitches are not going to become dead ringers for the WACA in Perth. Playing on them and winning is also a supreme test of skill. The great teams, like the 1983 West Indies and the 2004 Aussies, passed it. If beating India in India is now a cricketing Labour of Hercules, that's something to be proud of.

I've already answered this - England's home is in SA. Hence they beat us away from home.

[kubrickian]

Many people in England and Australia essentially believe that the sub continent doesnt have ideal cricket conditions. They think the ball should bounce, swing or seam around and the pitch shouldnt break up before the 3rd day. All conditions which are typical in Eng or Aus. That's the reason they normally dont take tours in sub continent seriously or rate sub continent batsmen highly. Even if Eng, Aus or SA batsmen are poor at playing spin, it wont be considered much of a flaw in their technique when compared to a sub continent player's inability to play the short ball. If an Indian batsmen has an average of above 50, it will be viewed with skepticism and generally only rate them when they see him perform in Eng or Australia. Till then, he is considered a flat track bully. But what I dont understand is if batting in sub continent is so easy, why do England and Australia always struggle here ? Ponting has a dismal record in India. If someone from India had a similar record in Aus or Eng, he would be considered a STB or FTB or whatever. The problem with this logic is most Indian people also buy into it and think performances in Eng or Australia matter more than in India. I dont know if this is due to conditioning over the years by 'experts' from Eng or Aus or just plain inferiority complex.

[bajrang]

its time everbody realize that india is the center of the cricketing world, especially those old fool commentators who still living in their past glory.

[Serani]

If this was a test series that India were dominating then fair enough, at the end of the day england have been terrible in ODI's away from home forever so you cant take too much from it. If this series was a three test series instead it would have been far more interesting.

[Cricket Tragic]

Do not deride solid home performances but beware of the euphoria of a whitewash

If this was a test series that India were dominating then fair enough' date=' at the end of the day england have been terrible in ODI's away from home forever so you cant take too much from it. If this series was a three test series instead it would have been far more interesting.[/quote'] Fair enough.

[Cricket Tragic]

Beware the euphoria of a whitewash First time that Sharda Ugra has written something that makes sense - most of it anyway.

Beware the euphoria of a whitewash All those astonished by the 3-0 scoreline in the five-match India v England ODI series, please raise your hands. To you, it can only be said: ye of little faith. Or rather, ye of short memory. Fine, so 4-0 and 3-0 are not the kind of souvenirs anyone in Indian cricket would have wanted from an English summer, but India are among the game's more accomplished shape-shifters, and the course of this ODI series, while enjoyable and entertaining, has been far from surprising. Simply put, India at home in the short game are very, very hard to beat. Despite a rapidly changing line-up and ever-growing injury lists, their players have become adept masters of their own conditions, be it the bowlers who extend their variety, or the batsmen's fearlessness in the crunch, considered by many to be one of the IPL's worthwhile cricketing benefits. Over the last five years in the 50-over format, India have only gained in strength, and have virtually reformatted their own record of winning at home. In the first five years of the 2000s, India approximately had the 55-45% win-loss record that television executives believe is the minimum needed to keep the home audience riveted. It is what they have done since that offers the pure weight of proof about their home advantage. From March 2000 to April 2005, India won 22 and lost 24 of their 47 ODIs at home. From October 2005 to date, India's record is 51 wins in 76 ODIs, and 27 in 36 over the last three years with a single defeat in 16 home ODIs in the last 12 months. In the 2000s, India have lost only six of 18 bilateral series at home (not counting a single BCCI Platinum Jubilee ODI against Pakistan as a series). There have been three humongous margins of victory at home in the last six years: 6-1 over Sri Lanka in 2005, 5-1 over England in 2005-06, and the only "doughnut" result: a 5-0 drubbing of, erm, England again, in the interrupted seven-match series in 2008-09. Still overwhelmed by 3-0? Just because they had a poor tour of England doesn't mean the Indian team has forgotten how to play in India. In each of the ODIs this month, India have been impressive in their execution and methodical dismantling of England. Anything less, however, would have been disappointing. This is how world champions are meant to perform in their own backyards. In any case, amongst the frontline nations, England in India are relatively less problematic opposition than, say, Australia or South Africa. The Australians are the only touring team to win an ODI series in India, not once but twice in the last four years, and South Africa make a respectable fist of every format they play in here. The last time England won a series of any kind in India was in 1984-85; no matter how much they plan or how early they turn up, a tour of India usually seems to end up a discombobulating ordeal. In real terms, more than bring notions of revenge or delirium to Indian cricket, this series will sober England. India, however, are exactly where they were after England, only happier, with more smiling faces. Suddenly the bench seems loaded with strength, playing off the back foot is an art well distributed along the batting order, the fielders have found their inner Jonty, and god alive, an Indian fast bowler who hits 145kph actually exists. If anything reflects Indian cricket's inability to think ahead, it lies in how its fast bowlers are handled: the career paths of Munaf Patel and Ishant Sharma at one point started exactly where Umesh Yadav's is at the moment India have had such eureka series over and over again, only to have short-sightedness, mismanagement and poor scheduling fling one banana peel after another into the team's path. If anything reflects Indian cricket's inability to think ahead, it lies in how its fast bowlers are handled: the career paths of Munaf Patel and Ishant Sharma at one point started exactly where Umesh Yadav's is at the moment. RP Singh was a successor to Zaheer Khan in 2007. As far as batsmen go, in 2008, Rohit Sharma was where Virat Kohli is today - and with success against Australia as his benchmark. The Indians have trundled ahead because talent is never in short supply. It comes through in a dazzling blaze, and if snuffed out, the vacant space is lit up by another blaze. The only way this ODI series can have a greater significance beyond mere momentary delight is if it becomes a launch pad for India's ambitions. Or at least gives us a sign that, for a change, Indian cricket is thinking ahead. What India do in the tri-series against Australia and Sri Lanka next year is going to be noticed and remembered far longer than the result against England. Even if the temptation of producing another doughnut is what is keeping MS Dhoni in the last two ODIs. When he genuinely has a clear choice of taking a short ten-day break, or at least giving the gloves to Parthiv Patel. Dhoni has often shown his badly damaged and bent fingers when asked how they are doing. Until the tour of England his results have been preternatural, if born of an extremely cruel work load. But those fingers are not about to mend themselves out of sympathy if Dhoni wants to be around when India defend their World Cup title. The Indian team sheet at the 2015 tournament is going to look very different from what it did on April 2, 2011. To begin with, it will need new opening partnerships in both batting and bowling. To be competitive in Australia requires a wider range of skills than the ones India worked with when planning their 2011 campaign. In 2015 the players with those skills will need to have been seasoned over at least 80-odd ODIs (only two men in India's World Cup winning squad had played less than 50 ODIs, and neither played in the final), which means that the most promising candidates must get a move on. India's selectors must at least work out their first steps in a general direction. These could be exhilarating times because the best selectors are both seers and clinical succession planners. The bloopers of K Srikkanth's committee though, are worrying evidence to the contrary. The echo of a resounding series win over England may drown out all references to India's errors in a woeful, revealing summer. With Australia beckoning, what is more important though, is that they are neither forgotten nor repeated.

[vamos_rafa]

I don't understand why people are questioning our prowess of playing outside SC. We have been THE most successful team outside home,after Australia in the past decade. One horrenoud series can't write off the efforts that had been put in the last decade.

[Cricket Tragic]

Because a lot of people have a short memory.

[cowboysfan]

what we did wrong was not blooding youngsters sooner and relying on aging stars to win a tough series and were let down spectacularly .I think it would be prudent to make sure Pujara and a couple of youngsters will be ready for the aussie tour.

[Cricket Tragic]

Pujara showed promise in SA but that's about it. He averaged 10 in the series.

[vamos_rafa]

what we did wrong was not blooding youngsters sooner and relying on aging stars to win a tough series and were let down spectacularly .I think it would be prudent to make sure Pujara and a couple of youngsters will be ready for the aussie tour.

When your best 4 batters are in top form(almost) then you really don't want to risk replacing a youngster in place of them, specially on a foreign tour. Once Ganguly retired, there was 1 spot available for a youngster, but unfortunately, noone has been able to acquire it till now.

[Cricket Tragic]

^Exactly. Hopefully we sort out the number 6 in the tests vs the WI.

[vamos_rafa]

^Exactly. Hopefully we sort out the number 6 in the tests vs the WI.

I hope so too. But, who would do that? I am all out with Raina now, seriously don't want him to be a part of the Test squad unless he sorts out his technique. Pujara is injured but his technique did impress me. Though he did not score a lot, but he showed some temperament, specially at Durban. That leaves us with either Rahane or Kohli. Kohli, IMO, fishes a lot outside off stump and Gavaskar mentioned his not being very adept at handling short-pitch stuff. As for Rahane, I would not pass the judgement so early. Yes, he has impressed, but it's been hardly 2 series.

[Cricket Tragic]

No Raina and no Yuvraj either. I think Kohli deserves another shot. He has several areas to work on though to become a world class test player - we saw him fishing even in the ODIs but no slips in place. He needs to play a lot straighter as well. There is too much bottom hand in his shots and he plays across the line a fair bit without a stride. If the ball swings into him, he will be a dead duck unless he sorts it out.

[rkt.india]

No Raina and no Yuvraj either. I think Kohli deserves another shot. He has several areas to work on though to become a world class test player - we saw him fishing even in the ODIs but no slips in place. He needs to play a lot straighter as well. There is too much bottom hand in his shots and he plays across the line a fair bit without a stride. If the ball swings into him, he will be a dead duck unless he sorts it out.

IMO, Kohli, Rahane, Pujara, and Rohit...These guys should be given ample chances to stabilize themselves at test level. Scoring runs in India wont be a problem for them at all. It is overseas where we need to play well. And even with great players like SRT, RD, VVS, Viru, Ganguly, we have not won much abroad apart form a tough series in England. We won in WI as well, but then we should beat WI anywhere in the globe. Similar case is with NZ, though overseas wins are always tough. We say we have done so well abroad, but actually it has not been the case even with these great players and the trend will continue. Aus, England, and SA are the place to win test series and I don't see us winning their until we have a very strong fast bowling attack who can take wickets at better rate than their counterparts.

[Cricket Tragic]

IMO, Kohli, Rahane, Pujara, and Rohit...These guys should be given ample chances to stabilize themselves at test level. Scoring runs in India wont be a problem for them at all. It is overseas where we need to play well. And even with great players like SRT, RD, VVS, Viru, Ganguly, we have not won much abroad apart form a tough series in England. We won in WI as well, but then we should beat WI anywhere in the globe. Similar case is with NZ, though overseas wins are always tough. We say we have done so well abroad, but actually it has not been the case even with these great players and the trend will continue. Aus, England, and SA are the place to win test series and I don't see use winning their until we have a very strong fast bowling attack who can take wickets at better rate than their counterparts.

You've got the reason right there. The batsmen can only score the runs. You need a decent attack to win test matches and series.

[rkt.india]

You've got the reason right there. The batsmen can only score the runs. You need a decent attack to win test matches and series.

Look at what kind of a batting Pak had and still they won test last summer in England just because of superior performance of their bowlers and we did not even threaten them.