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

All the Test playing sides used to take home advantage for their benefit. England, India & Sri Lanka still used to take that benefit. But home advantage of Australia, South Africa & West Indies (pacy & bouncy pitches) has nullified considerably during last 3/4 years due to various reasons. Hope in future England & India will stop taking undue advantage of home surface for better competition.

Good points Jed and very true about the strengths of the Indian team. You have hit the nail on the head.

There's pretty strong evidence to suggest that wickets with a bit of juice suit India better than flat wickets. Almost all of their overseas victories have come in conditions which have afforded assistance to the pace bowlers - Perth 2008, Lords 2014, Durban 2010, Joburg 2006, Sabina Park 2006, Headingley 2002, Wellington 2009. It's not that surprising actually. India''s talent is concentrated in their batting. Hence their bowlers need help in order to be effective. The chance of an Indian batsman playing a matchwinning innings on a seamer is greater (considerably so) than an INdian bowler producing a match winning spell on a flat deck. As an Indian captain touring overseas , I would actually prefer the opposition rollout wickets with some juice. SUre you might get rolled ~ but it probably gives you a better chance of winning than a flat pitch or a pitch that needs very tall, quick bowlers to extract something out of (ie the sorts of bowlers that India don't really produce).

I think you are right that Australia would probably have won 4 nil on traditional decks. But the Indian view is that the flat decks disadvantage the touring team more than Australia. And, based on results, it is hard to argue with them. Consider that the Indians failed to take 20 wickets in any test match in 2014-15. Moreover, in 2015-16 both NZ and the Windies also failed to take 20 wickets in any of the six tests they played. In other words, in the past two summers, Australia has played 10 test matches and has not lost 20 wickets in any of them. Of the 9 tests capable of a result (the last Sydney test was washed out) Australia won 6. What this does demonstrate, however, is just how potent the Australian bowling unit is.

How about removing the advantage of pitch conditions away from the hosting side and allow the visting captain to determine pitch condition, or on the other hand give him first dibs at the toss?

There is no doubt in my mind that the "doctored decks" worked very much in favor of the touring Indians in 2015. Had we prepared the usual traditional lively Aussie decks with heaps of pace and carry, decks which Indians hate, I feel certain blokes like Kholi would not have cashed in much as they did. You can lay bets that the BCCI will not be as generous when we tour there early next year. We will get the usual decks that turn to dust bowls and are tailor made for the clever Indian spinner.

"they are scoring heaps of runs and get made to look like champs." They look like champs at home and chumps abroad. Our batsmen are widely regarded as "home track bullies" by many in the overseas cricket community, and this perception is perpetuated by the "roads" being prepared for Australian tests, and also our failure to cope with bowler-friendly conditions abroad. Of course this perception is not true; for example, I understand Smith has a better away test record than the away record of any of the other young overseas batting stars (eg Root; Koli; and Williamson), but this perception will continue until we start preparing sporting pitches for tests in Australia. I would hope that the Australian batsmen would understand this and support the preparation of traditional Australian pitches for tests.

you really think our batsman would prefer more in it for the bowlers? why? they are scoring heaps of runs and get made to look like champs. i understand the sentiment that we want our best players to want to be those heroes who play for the challenge of the game but i think that is just a beautiful wish that we have and not reality.

I think you'd find that even most of the Aussie batsmen would prefer to have a bit more in the Aussie pitches. It's all about a challenge, batting in conditions that give a bit of assistence for the bowlers offer a good challenge to the batsmen, and that's a good thing. Personally, I always loved the traditional Aussie pitches which tended to have a bit in them for everyone. Different ones balanced in different ways, but usually it was a case of having something for the quicks at the start, for the spinners at the end, but not too much that they were impossible to bat on. Even the flattest of decks usually offterred something for the bowler. The WACA pitch last summer was just the pinnacle of terrible as far as overly flat pitches are concerned. Much prefer to just prepare pitches according to the local characteristics, with a bit in them for everyone, and if there's been more rain it will be a bit greener and if it's a real drought it will be a bit dryer, but overall it sticks to it's more traditional balanced characteristics.

If there is more moisture in the pitch then it tends to rise up from the pitch and mean the level of humidity above the pitch is higher, thus causing the ball to swing more. Plus, pitch conditions can vary how the ball lasts. Some conditions barely rough up the ball and it can stay shiny and hard and swing for 80 overs. Others rough up the ball really quickly and can lead to reverse swing from early on. Conditions do certainly affect swing bowling. I will normally get the ball to swing a fair bit, but there are just some days when you are still bowling the ball with a perfect upright seam at a good angle and it just goes dead straight.

Don't blame the drop-in pitches. The WACA has been one of the most lifeless pitches the last few years and it's not a drop-in. I'm certain the issue is much more what Ronan stated about commercial concerns - wanting matches to go into the 5th day being of utmost importance, hence not wanting pitches that allow fast bowlers to rip through teams. The drop-in pitches tend to be made with the same soil and turf that the pitches were previously made with and should be able to have similar characteristics. Being kept in pristine condition through winter instead of having footballers run all over them probably helps to have them just too perfectly even, so you don't get the uneven patches across the pitch causing the ball to behave a bit differently if it lands in a slightly different place, which I think it the biggest downfall of these pitches, but overall characteristics, like having good pace and bounce and a bit of seam movement just comes down to how they are prepared more than whether they are drop-in's or not.

What I mean when I say cloud cover impacts the bowling, I probably wasn't clear. Cloud cover doesn't impact how the ball moves or plays, it affects the quality of the light; what is a good ball but thoroughly defendable under a clear sky can be nigh unplayable under the clouds. And, as I said above, Anderson needs all conditions to be in synchronicity, otherwise he is a mortal compared to how he is when they work. AndyO, you should take this as no slight on him, because with the right conditions, Anderson is better than anyone I've ever seen.

It is a myth that has lived on long in the cricketing world, but that article is right and is one of many - cloud cover does not impact on swing. A bowler's skill is the major factor. The problem Australians have with green wickets in England is compounded by the seam movement on green tops - something we aren't used to and have no ability to play.

AndyO, Liam is right about conditions. A NASA scientist, Rabindra Mehta – a school friend of Imran Khan, has studied this for years and written a lot about swing and conditions. He is definitively of the opinion that cloud-cover does not impact swing. In fact, it has much more to do with wrist position and speed (too fast and the ball wont swing). Here's an article on some of his research. It's very interesting. http://www.criclounge.com/news/1786/NASA-proves-the-theory-behind-the-swing-of-a-cricket-ball.html

Ronan - Could not agree more. I grew up in India getting up at 4am as a kid to listen to radio commentary of India v Australia Test Matches. It was fascinating to picture the bounce of Perth and the swing of Gabba, and sit at the Eden Gardens and wonder what the MCG is like. Then Live TV came to India and I could actually watch Lillee and Thommo torture batsmen at the WACA! I have to say even as an Indian fan the 2014-15 series shocked me in terms of the changed quality of pitches. I cannot believe Australian pitches can be such flat tracks. Home pitch advantage is an Essence of Test Cricket. You may not like the spinning tracks in India or the Jimmy Anderson specials in England, but the test of a real batsman is how he plays in such conditions. If pitches all over the world played like you were in Dubai, the joy of Cricket would be gone. There is a good reason Test Cricket has the word "Test" in it.

A part of the problem, i think, lies in the short tours. No more 4 or 5 games vs counties / states for the tourists to get their eye in, just one against some invitation xi and then straight into the tests. I don 't see a way round this, to be honest. The administrations have to make money from the tourists, and that lied increasingly in ODIs and T20s.

Yeah I said atmospheric conditions ALSO play a part. Obviously the deck all has something to do with it. And obviously you have to be a decent bowler to take advantage. Or everybody would be doing it. Anderson is the worlds finest in when the ball is moving laterally

It isn't just the weather and the overcast sky that create swing, AndyO. If you ask anyone who has played any level of turf cricket, they'll tell you that while the weather certainly plays a part, the condition of the pitch - dry, moist etc - forms a part of the atmosphere around it, and affects the way the ball plays. This is part of why Anderson is so dynamic in conditions that suit him, yet sometimes when he has the humidity and the cloud cover he can underwhelm; Anderson, on a workable pitch, under an overcast sky with humid weather is superman, but without any single element his bowling is not unplayable at all. If the pitch is very green, and the weather otherwise dry, the pitch can breed the most uncanny swing you will ever see; if the pitch is dusty as hell, but the weather suits a swing bowler, sometimes the ball won't budge its line.

I agree because a pitch with life gives the underdog a chance of victory. A lifeless Australian track means that barring declaration its either a draw or Australia win. This whole article perpetuates a myth that Australia don't doctor pitches and its just by some magic that since the Warne-McGrath generation of 2004 Australia has played 7 away series in India and England and lost all 7 of them.

I imagine the new Perth Stadium will have a pretty lifeless pitch too, being a drop-in.