Beating India in India has been considered the toughest task in men’s Test cricket for the past few years, and the numbers back this up: India have a record of 40-4 on domestic soil since the start of 2013, which is clearly their best record. In second place is Australia with 41-7.
For much of this period, India were dominant in both batting and bowling. From 2013 to 2020, despite an astounding 28-1 win-loss record at home, India averaged 44.05 runs per wicket when batting and 23.30 runs per wicket when bowling, both of which were the best among all teams at home. The only year during this period in which Indian batsmen averaged less than 40 runs at home in a calendar year was 2015, when they scored just 25.27 runs per wicket on questionable pitches in the four-Test series against South Africa. (These batting averages do not include extra runs, and bowling rates only include bowler’s wickets.)
However, since 2021, that trend has changed a bit. In these four years, in 17 home Tests, India’s batting average has dropped to 33.40 from a high of 48 from 2016 to 2020 (actually 2019, as there was no Test cricket in India in 2020). In terms of ranking, India has dropped from 1st to 5th. However, their bowlers have kept their promise, taking wickets at an average of 21.29, second only to South Africa’s 18.84 among all teams in home conditions. India’s record of 12 wins and 3 losses in this period shows that they are still the dominant team, though not as dominant as before.
India’s poor batting and pitching averages point to another trend: things are getting tougher for domestic batsmen in general. How much tougher has batting in India become over the last four years compared to the same period before? The answer is in the numbers. Let’s look at just the top seven batsmen from 2016 to 2020 and from 2021 onwards.
The overall figure for India’s top seven batsmen, both home and away, has fallen significantly from 39.18 in the first term to 31.65 since 2021. (This includes only Tests involving India and excludes the few matches where India was at neutral venues.) Between 2016 and 2020, India’s average was the highest of any team that hosted at least 10 Tests, followed by Australia at 38.3. (Pakistan hosted only three Tests in that period.) Since 2021, their overall average has fallen to seventh out of nine countries, with only West Indies and South Africa having lower top seven batsmen averages.
These declines in averages for India have been driven mainly by domestic batsmen. For overseas batsmen, the Indian pitches and Singaporean ball have been a tricky combination for some time now, but their averages over the two periods have only fallen slightly, from 28.51 to 26.12. Meanwhile, the fall in averages for India’s top seven batsmen has been steeper, from 54.43 to 38.30.
It is true that not all teams have toured India since 2021. There have been a few series against England but apart from that, Australia, Sri Lanka and New Zealand have toured. The teams that have toured between 2016 and 2020 are New Zealand, England, Bangladesh (twice), Australia, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, West Indies and South Africa. Though the gap is widening, the difference in average for overseas batsmen is relatively small, with only an 8% drop from 2021 onwards compared to the 2016-2020 period. But for Indian batsmen, the drop is a whopping 29.6%, dropping five places from 1st to 6th in the home batting average of each team’s top seven teams.
While India have still been fairly consistent in winning over the last four years, their batsmen have not been able to exploit the home advantage as they used to. The top seven teams have an average run per game of 38.3 at home and 34.78 overseas, a difference of just 3.52. Only two of the top nine teams, West Indies and Bangladesh, have a closer difference. Their run per game difference over the last four years has been 19.53, the highest of any team. This is mainly due to their very high home average of 54.43, but their away average of 34.90 has also been the highest over this period.
The decline is largely due to a huge drop in form from India’s middle-order batsmen. Virat Kohli scored 100+ runs in 22 Test matches at an average of 86.17, but only scored 100+ runs in 11 Test matches and his average dipped to 34.47. Similarly, Cheteshwar Pujara’s average has fallen from 56.85 to 24.53, a drop of about 57%. Rohit Sharma has scored 400+ runs in 15 Test matches since 2021, but his average is still just below 45 compared to 101.1 from 2016 to 2020.
The only batsman to have had a phenomenal run at home in the past four years is Yashasvi Jaiswal, who has two double hundreds in five home Tests, but no other batsman has shown the same force. However, Shubman Gill has shown signs of doing the same, scoring three hundreds and averaging fifties in seven home Tests against Australia and England. Overall, India’s top seven batsmen’s innings per hundred has fallen from once every 6.9 innings to once every 13.1 innings.
Why have Indian batsmen’s numbers fallen so drastically over the past four years? The pace-to-spin ratio helps explain this. From 2016 to 2020, India’s top seven batsmen averaged 47.36 against seamers and 63.36 against spinners. From 2021 onwards, their average against pace has remained roughly the same, but against spin it has fallen by nearly 41% to 37.56. Wicket distribution has also become uneven, with opposition spinners taking 75% of India’s wickets (top seven) over the past four years compared to a ratio of almost 50% in the 2016-2020 period.
The batsman vs spin averages for each period further show the huge contrast between the two periods. Among batsmen who played a decent number of innings in both periods, the decline is again most pronounced for Kohli and Pujara. Kohli scored 1342 runs in 13 outings against spin in the 2016-20 period, but has been out by spinners 15 times since 2021 and has scored only 454 runs. Similarly, Pujara scored 1128 runs in 13 outings against spin in the 2016-20 period, but has scored only 277 runs in 12 outings since then. Apart from these two, the figures of Rajat Patidar and KL Rahul are also dismal, and Shreyas Iyer’s statistics do not support his reputation of being a good spin player. In fact, all-rounders Akshar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja have performed better against spin than many specialist batsmen. Between 2016 and 2020, every leading batsman except Ajinkya Rahane averaged 48 or above against spin.
Since 2021, there have been 11 overseas spinners who have taken eight or more wickets for India, four of them averaging below 30 and eight below 36. Between 2016 and 2020, five of the eight spinners who took five or more wickets for India conceded more than 48 runs per wicket.
Despite these improved numbers, opposing batsmen are no better against spin than Indian batsmen. But the gap has narrowed. Indian batsmen have gone from more than twice as good as their opponents to only about 1.5 times better. In terms of absolute difference in average against spin, there has been a huge drop from 33.35 to 13.51 among the top seven batsmen. But R. Ashwin, Jadeja, Akshar and Kuldeep Yadav are all significantly better than opposing spinners, and this difference is enough to be decisive in most matches.
However, for opposition spinners, India are no longer the worst scoring team as they were between 2016 and 2020, with that honour now going to Australia, whose spinners average 38.06. Against India, their average is 35.50, a significant improvement from their average of 49.86 over the previous five years.
While India’s recent domestic batting figures are a bit worrying, there is some optimism in the form of two players who are expected to be India’s batting flag-bearers for the next few years. In the series against England earlier this year, Jaiswal hit two double hundreds at an average of 89, while Gill scored over 450 runs at an average of over 56. These are far better performances than Pujara and Rahane recorded in recent domestic Test matches.
India go into a five-Test match season at home and will be asking more from their batsmen than they have shown recently. If Kohli gets back on track, the quartet of Rohit, Jaiswal, Gill and Kohli, with generous support from Akshar Patel and Jadeja, could well see India regaining their batting dominance at home.
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