At the end of the fourth Test Match against India in Mumbai, English pace spearhead James Anderson said something that annoyed millions of fanatical fans of the Indian cricket team. Targeting the man of the moment, Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli, who had just hit an imperious double century, Anderson suggested that Kohli was saved by the playing conditions that hid his “technical deficiencies”. Anderson also made light of the other two star performers for India in this series, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. The spin duo has taken almost 40 wickets between them in the first four Test matches of the series.
One can throw a whole lot of numbers to dismiss the comments as a case of extreme frustration. For instance, Kohli is now the only batsman in the history of the game to have an average over 50 across the three formats. This calendar year, he has hit three double centuries; only five batsmen have scored three or more in the past. He is seen to be filling the spot left by the great Sachin Tendulkar. Moreover, his performance as captain, both in terms of runs and team victories, is simply undeniable. His Test batting average as captain, at 65.5 runs per innings, is second only to the Don. Moreover, among Indian captains, he has already notched up 13 Test victories in just 21 Tests. Mohd Azharuddin took 47 Tests to win 14. So it is not for nothing that former English captain Mike Atherton hailed Kohli as “the most influential figure in the game”.
But here’s the rub. In sharp contrast to his overall Test average of 50.53, Kohli’s average against England while playing in that country is an embarrassing 13.40 runs per innings. Anderson has a point since he also got Kohli’s wicket on four of those occasions in England. In fact, Kohli’s away average is 44.61, a long way off from his home average. And here, too, it is his performance in Australia (62 in eight Tests) that shores up his mediocre efforts in West Indies (36.33 in seven Tests) and Sri Lanka (38.83 in three Tests). He hasn’t played more than two Tests in any other country.
The fact is that the Indian cricket team has traditionally lived up to its reputation of being lions at home and lambs abroad. While it is something that every team can relate to, records show that India personifies the saying more than any other. The contrast between India’s winning rate at home and abroad across formats tells the story. In fact, Ashwin, who is the top Test bowler at present and was one of the targets of Anderson, has an average record outside India. He has played 40 per cent of his Test Matches in away conditions but only 27 per cent of his wickets came there. In fact, in England, he has played two Tests and taken three wickets at an average of over 33 runs per wicket. Jadeja has played 33 per cent of his Tests in away conditions and taken only 20 per cent of his wickets there. In England, he has taken nine wickets in four Tests at an average of close to 47 runs. The point is, just because the domestic scoreline is emphatic does not mean that Anderson’s point about conditions making a big difference is not valid.
