Sachin, Lara, Sangakkara, Kallis, Ponting: Who is the greatest Test match-winner?

Home wins versus away wins

Often, a batsman’s career is evaluated only by his away performances. This is unfair, in my opinion. While away performances must surely get more recognition given the challenging conditions, home games almost always come with the burden of fans’ expectations and thus add a massive layer of difficulty.

When we analyse the performance of the greats in home wins, Ponting again comes out on top with 76% of his home runs coming in wins. This goes on to further underline Australia’s unprecedented dominance in the 2000s.

Kallis and Sangakkara, who were also part of teams that had a strong home record, have corresponding numbers of 59% and 51%. Lara, once again, is at the bottom of the list with just 32% of his home runs in wins.

The home average ratio (ratio of average in wins to the overall average in home Tests) sees Dravid and Sangakkara come out on top (1.22) while Tendulkar and Lara finish in the bottom two (1.06 and 1.02 respectively). When it comes to the away performances (away and neutral Tests considered), Ponting once again leads the way with 55% of his runs in wins while Kallis and Dravid follow with figures of 30% and 24%. This points to Dravid’s hugely important role in wins abroad (233 in Adelaide, the knocks in Jamaica, 270 in Rawalpindi). Sangakkara and Dravid finish on top when we consider the away average ratio (ratio of average in away wins to overall away average).

Interestingly, Kallis’ corresponding ratio is slightly below 1, indicating that his performance in wins was not better or worse than his overall away display.