As with is the case with captaincy in other team sports – football, basketball, AFL even – the emphasis on away wins in cricket is little more than posturing.
Certainly there’s the travel, the foreign surrounds and the disquiet of not having your own bed to sleep in, but one football pitch doesn’t differ all that much from the next.
When it comes to cricket however, we talk of Test wins on foreign soil with a languid lust and ardour, for here is a game so intricate and superior that these factors not only count, but in today’s age make it nigh on impossible to win away from home.
That at least, is the perception, drummed into us patriotic types by a willing media happy to create a swooning narrative. “It’s never been harder to win away from home,” we are told, as reports tumble in of home groundsmen doctoring – or ‘nearly doctoring’ if we’re looking for tact and diplomacy – pitches to suit their home side’s needs.
Late last year South Africa succumbed to India inside three days on a variable Nagpur pitch which was duly rated poor and handed an official warning by the ICC. They lost with it both the game, the series and an away series streak which had seen them undefeated since 2006. The only way this team – the best in the world – could be beaten, the internet raged, was by the home side effectively cheating them out of it.
After a clinical dismantling of Australia’s Test side by arguably the world’s best seam attack in England earlier in the year, on seam-friendly pitches, the stocks of an away series win rose.
India captain Virat Kohli said it was up to the batsmen to adapt. Nobody listened. He, after all, was the victorious captain over the reigning number one side. India duly sauntered up the ICC Test rankings, toppling South Africa from top spot.
This despite their recent series win against Sri Lanka becoming their first away Test series win in four years. Fortress India it might be, but their first win of that series was just their third away Test match win, of 27, since winning the 2011 ODI World Cup. The outrage was palpable. While India lie atop, England, having just prevailed away over South Africa, are fifth.
India’s ranking is a – temporary – reflection of an intricate ratings system that perhaps hasn’t got it quite right. No doubt there are issues and the outright disregard of away wins in the ratings weightings might be an area for adjustment, perhaps shouldering an advantage similar to the away goal rule in international football tournaments. Winning away however, is not getting harder.
In Australia, the perception of unachievable away victories is stronger than most, no doubt the exaggerated importance of the Ashes playing its part. Australia have not won an Ashes series on English soil in almost 15 years. The agony of losing last year’s, despite being odds-on to do just that, is still raw.
South Africa held the number one Test spot for 18 consecutive months when they were at the pinnacle of their powers. Their remarkable away form was just a reflection of this. Australia too were number one from 2003 and 2009 because they were the best team both home and away.
AB de Villiers, remarkable for both his talent, longevity and remarkable shot selection, has an average with the bat that is better away than at home. Better, but not drastically different. Australia’s away wins as a percentage of their total wins has peaked and troughed over the last few decades almost in unison to their overall win record.
Between 2001 and 2006 they won 67 per cent of all games. Their away wins as a percentage of total wins peaked at 43 per cent. Between 1986 and 1991, when they were winning just 31 per cent of all matches, their away win percentage drooped to 37 per cent. Now, in the last five years where they have won 55 per cent of all games, their away win ratio reflects this, sitting at 37 per cent. When teams play well, it doesn’t matter where.
Beating New Zealand away does not make Australia a better side than the one that beat them on home soil late last year. Winning away has become such a psychological block in the Australian mindset however that it might just give them the mental shove they need to do it again soon.
Win in New Zealand, as they should, and Australia should look to their next away tours with no more trepidation than they do their home fixtures. The turning pitches of the sub-continent loom, but remember too that one of the world’s best batsmen against spin, Michael Clarke, was raised in the country where it is oft remarked that spinners come to die. Good batsmen win at home, great batsmen, as Kohli remarked, adapt.
Winning away is hard, but the minds have made it harder.
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