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England or India - which Test team has the biggest home advantage?

England ran up 444 against Pakistan. (Richard Sellers / PA via AP)
Expert
18th June, 2016
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Sri Lanka floundered on English seaming pitches this month, while South Africa recently capitulated on dustbowl decks in India.

As India and England revel in exploiting their home advantage, Australia have all but lost theirs due to the rise of flat, money-making pitches.

India long has been the focus of debates about home pitch advantage, but is arguable that juicy English decks now have become just as alien to most batsmen as rank turners.

This is because of the scarcity of Test pitches which offer a distinct advantage to pace bowlers.

Both New Zealand and South Africa used to commonly produce Test wickets which were quite similar in nature to the traditional English seamer.

In recent years, however, both of those countries increasingly have prepared drier, flatter surfaces. Meanwhile, the pitches in Australia have become lifeless over the past few summers, despite historically being renowned for offering assistance to the quicks.

Test batsmen have become so unused to encountering pace-friendly pitches that seaming decks have become like minefields. The seaming English pitches on which visiting sides have been routed over the past few years have not offered exorbitant movement. Australia repeatedly collapsed last year on pitches which were by no means “green demons”.

So mollycoddled are batsman by the roads we commonly see in Tests now that even subtle seam movement can leave them flummoxed. England’s home ground advantage is growing by the season.

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Meanwhile, Australia has all but lost its home advantage due to woeful corporate pitches, designed not to favour the home team but rather to push matches into the fifth day and maximise revenue. When India toured for a four-Test series in the summer of 2014-15, their batsmen must have been shocked at the generosity shown by their hosts.

Not only did Australia scrub from the fixtures what was then the fastest pitch in Australia, the WACA, but they also served up four Tests worth of flat, slow pitches, which perfectly suited the visiting batsmen. The Australians had a fearsome pace attack, capable of terrorising the Indian batsmen on traditional, bouncy home pitches. Yet their quicks were neutered by the sleepy decks.

There is zero chance Australia will be afforded the same hospitality when they travel to India for a four-Test series in eight months’ time. The Australian batsmen must have shuddered when they saw highlights from South Africa’s recent 4-0 Test series loss in India.

So difficult were some of the surfaces in that series that spinners were getting the ball to turn and bounce wildly from the first session of the match. The extreme nature of the pitches was underscored by the fact that nine top-six batsmen averaged 25 or less for the series, including Rohit Sharma (average of 6), Faf du Plessis (8), JP Duminy (14), Hashim Amla (17), Dean Elgar (19) and Shikhar Dhawan (25).

When Australia tour India, they almost certainly will be greeted by dry, turning pitches foreign to the tourists. If the Indian surfaces are similar to those turned out for the recent South Africa series, it will be a miracle if Australia merely can be competitive.

Now, as much as cricket fans whinge about pitches being tailor made for home teams – we’ve all been guilty of it at some stage – there’s no doubt that variety in surfaces around the world makes the Test format more intriguing. When a visiting side managed to conquer the juicy, seaming decks in England, the rank turners in India, or the (previously) fast, bouncy Australian tracks, it made their victory all the more special.

For most Australian fans, a series win in India or England is worth ten lopsided victories at home. Australia have a chance next month to slowly build some momentum in foreign conditions.

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Despite frequently being pilloried as home track bullies, Australia have won their most recent series in South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the West Indies and Bangladesh.

A dominant showing on dry pitches in Sri Lanka in August will give Australia some desperately-needed confidence ahead of the tour to India. That series next February and March looms ever so large.

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