It's tough at the top

To all students of Indian cricket, we start of with a multiple choice quiz: 


Q: During the last two away-series against in non-subcontinental conditions, as the test team was obliterated 8-0 by an Anglo-Australian combo, what do you think was the biggest factor?
a. Lack of support for Zaheer Khan in Australia. 
b. Lack of Zaheer Khan for support in England.
c. The famous Indian Middle Order playing as though they were featuring in a retirement benefit, despite quashing all talk of retirement. 
d. The IPL (which is also responsible for world hunger and global warming). 


To the curious onlooker and pedant alike, any of those might seem to be attractive options. However, I would like to propose an extra option to add to the following that, after extensive analysis (read 20 mins of fiddling with Cricinfo's statsguru, complaining about how terrible the interface is and then stumbling upon the stat), there is a 5th choice that I would like to add to this list - and that might end up being the correct answer. And I don't mean an 'All of the above' option, which is always right. 


Let's look at some stats, shall we? Let's consider the period between Jan 1, 2003 and Dec 31, 2010, i.e. from that golden summer in Australia when India started being competitive abroad up until before the horror show last year. As the criteria, let's look at the first wicket partnerships for India everywhere but Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. This is what shows up: 


From 2003-2010 inclusive, India used 8 openers and over the course of 48 innings, they scored 2231 runs at an average of 48.50. Compare that to last year and the difference could not be more stark. 5 openers have managed a mere 382 runs in 24 innings over the last year, with a paltry average of 15.91. Because tables and statistics can get prohibitive to read and spit too much unnecessary data anyway, let's try and analyze what all of this means. 


It means that between 2003 and 2010, every time India played outside the subcontinent, they could be expected to score about 48 runs without losing a wicket. This number dropped to 16 during the last year. To compare with the numbers before 2002, when india were routinely trashed abroad and whitewashes never resulted in analyses of this nature, India still did better than last year. Twice as well, as a matter of fact. Between 1932 and 2002, India's first wicket put on an approximately 29 runs for the first wicket (29.33 to be exact, for those who like that sort of thing). 


Now I'll go about arguing why this stat is more significant than any other reason. While the Indian bowling attack was not penetrating in either England or Australia, the fact remains that they never really had a lot of runs to play with. Yes, a team needs 20 wickets to win test matches, but if the batsmen are not going to put on runs on the scoreboard, there is never any pressure on the opposition batsmen. A case in point is the Perth test during the last Indian tour of Australia. The attack was mostly makeshift, but the batsmen stuck it out and made the Aussie bowlers work hard to get them out. As a result, the bowlers were able to generate sufficient pressure to make the batting wilt. 


As for the great middle order, they have always done well only when they've had a reasonable platform. The same middle order (plus Ganguly) could not prevent India from losing 3-0 to Australia in 1999. Traditionally, India have had a problem with good, solid test openers with the notable exception of a certain Sunil Gavaskar. It isn't overstating it that the success that the middle order had outside the subcontinent had a lot to do with the starts that Virender Sehwag provided. Gambhir has mostly been a failure in England and Australia and Sehwag's stand-and-deliver technique is being found out in seaming conditions now that his reflexes aren't as good as they were a few years back. 


To be able to compete outside the subcontinent, India do need a new, improved and solid middle order (including Sehwag, maybe), a competent seam attack and a half-decent spinner. However, before everything else, what the team need are a good, old-fashioned opening pair that will try and stick around for the first hour and shield the middle order from the new ball. And possibly even score some runs in the process. That is the first and foremost thing that needs to happen if the period between 2003 and 2010 is going to be remembered as anything but a slight aberration. 


Or, we can go about blaming the IPL.