Is Home Track Bully a real thing or is this just how it's supposed to be?

[the_outsider]

It's an open secret now that the main problem with test cricket is that teams don't win abroad. And when I say abroad I mean SC nations don't really beat SENA nations and SENA nations don't really beat SC teams. One can club WI as a weak SENA team judging by what Bangladesh are going through in the island nations. Looking at that Bangaldesh side, you would never think that this is the same team that almost made it 2-0 at home against England or that they even knocked down the mighty Aussies.

This phenomenon is present right from the top SC team and the top SENA team right down to the bottom SC team and bottom SENA team.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule. But they are few and far between. The only team 2 teams in the entire history of that did it was the Windies teams of 70-80s and the Aussies of 90s-2007ish.

So basically you have to be a GOAT team to consistently win in alien conditions.

So does that mean that we should realign our judgement about how "great" a team by putting so much emphasis on "abroad" wins?

It's not like India and Pakistan haven't beaten England and NZ in their homes. Both Pak and India have beaten Eng thrice. I haven't checked the stats but I think I can safely assume that the number of English wins on Indian and Pakistani soils isn't too far from that number.

You can still be a GREAT test team even if you don't dominate world test cricket for 20 years once every 50 years.

South Africa have been a great test team for a consistent period. The future is looking a little shaky though with many world class and ATGs retiring or due to retire.

Australia have their own problems. As do Pakistan with security and financial issues but they are still doing quite well overall. Australia are in deep waters right now and I do believe that they will recover to become a much better team than they are currently in 3-4 years time.

India have been up and down since 2003-04 and have only recently in the last couple of years really looked like they have taken their game a notch higher. They still have some ways to go and only the next 4-5 years of test cricket will take them to South African level and then sustain that for another 5-10 years to become a team that wins in SENA countries as much as Australia won in the SC - which isn't a very high percentage. It's certainly far from even stevens against the top 2 SC teams at any given time in history since the mid 80s.

So perhaps we should give Pakistan a lot more credit for the 1-1 draw in England. Just like we should admire India's efforts in SA recently and Australia's INCREDIBLE effort against India in 2017 (I rank it much higher than their 2004 series victory).

So what do you think? Should we cut our respective teams some slack?

 

[hadi123]

It's called Test cricket for a reason, playing away from home and winning matches outside your continent is the pinnacle.

 

[the_outsider]

It's called Test cricket for a reason, playing away from home and winning matches outside your continent is the pinnacle.

Yes but is the bar set too high because in 150 years of cricket we have only had 2 teams truly reach that pinnacle - WI & AUS.

Does that mean lesser teams than them are not great or world class? We should be a little less demanding from our teams considering how rarely we see a team reach the true pinnacle of cricket and have a sustained period of domination.

 

[Joseph Gomes]

Yes but is the bar set too high because in 150 years of cricket we have only had 2 teams truly reach that pinnacle - WI & AUS.

Does that mean lesser teams than them are not great or world class? We should be a little less demanding from our teams considering how rarely we see a team reach the true pinnacle of cricket and have a sustained period of domination.

South Africa routinely won test matches outside SENA since 2000.

 

[Ab Fan]

India dont have a single fast bowler of James Anderson level which is why struggled to win outside Asia against SENA teams.

Other Asian teams generally have weak batting as there isn't a single non-Indian batter to average 50 outside Asia among Asian batters and there is a lack of top quality fast bowler as well.

As far as non-Asian teams are concerned, England again dont have quality fast bowlers + quality spinners combination both to win them the series in Asia while when they had it, they did come up with result like in India 2012.

South Africa have done well because of combination of four high-quality batters and a couple of high quality fast bowlers. Unfortunately, if they had a quality spinner, they could have won those series which were drawn in India and Pakistan.

Australia's biggest issue is that their batsmen are generally weak against spin and also there was a time when they had to work with some below average fast bowlers spearhead by Johnson or very rarely, Harris.