Statistical analysis of India's overseas Test performances in 2018

Right before the start of any overseas cricket tour for India, every Indian cricket fan reaches a new level of excitement, anticipating a good show from their players away from home. If anything, that excitement went several notches higher when we entered into 2018, with 3 important overseas Test tours scheduled for India that year – starting with the SA tour. 8 months down the lane, 2 out of the 3 tours have concluded and India have lost both of them.

For a team which was looking in good shape until then, these twin losses have put in various questions in the minds of the fans as to where and why it went wrong, how can it be solved for the future tours, etc. So, this article would cover all the aspects of the team over both Test tours in 2018 (South Africa and England), analyze where and why we probably fared badly in that department and then look into possible solutions for those problems.

Another struggle for openers

Clearly, India haven't found a solution to their opening pair conundrum with all 3 openers not being at their best, Dhawan in particular. Either he barely survives the first hour or he throws his wicket away after getting a start. It is time to go past Dhawan and look for more stability at the top in the form of either Murali Vijay or giving chances to some youngsters like Mayank Agarwal or Prithvi Shaw. Murali Vijay has also had his struggles with the swinging deliveries in recent times, especially against Anderson, but not as vulnerable as Dhawan though. But, I personally felt that he wasn’t given enough chances in the England series and hence deserves a few more opportunities in the future to redeem himself.

KL Rahul had some issues with his technique during the SA tour and in the initial part of the England tour. But towards the end of the England series, he started getting into his groove with a couple of 30s and that blistering 149. This might just be an indication that he is starting to look more at ease now in overseas conditions and that he deserves more chances in Test cricket. Who knows, he might just become the attacking opener we were looking for all this while.

Kohli's performances exceptional but more expected from Pujara and Rahane

A lot was expected from the core trio - Pujara, Kohli and Rahane - as they were the experienced players who had been a part of quite a few overseas tours in the past. Kohli, without a doubt, has been the biggest positive for India in terms of batting performances in both the tours. If his performance in SA was anything to go by, he went to the next level in the England series, thereby erasing his nightmares of 2014.

Pujara struggled in SA whereas Rahane looked good in the only match he played in that series. In the Eng series, Pujara got a century and a fifty apart from a fighting 30 odd and Rahane got a couple of half-centuries and a good supporting knock of 37 in the last innings of the tour. Though they weren’t poor by any means, a lot more was expected from them than just this.

One of the possible reasons for this could be the constant chopping and changing policy, which could have created insecurity in them and dented their confidence. Either ways, this outcome has sent an important message to the selectors that they need to start looking for backup options like Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari and Karun Nair.

Pant showing promise as a keeper-batsman

Though it has been 3 years since Dhoni’s retirement from the longest format, the Indians haven’t yet found the perfect replacement for him as a keeper-batsman. For about 3 years when Saha was given the nod ahead of the others, his keeping skills were impressive but he looked all at sea with the bat. His injury gave Parthiv Patel and Dinesh Karthik a few chances, but neither of them impressing with the bat meant a few chances for Rishabh Pant in England.

The way Pant kept wickets to the fast bowlers and tackled the late swing was extraordinary for someone keeping for the first time in the test arena. Though he didn't amass too many runs in his first few innings, he showed glimpses of his counter-attacking nature. Now with that century, he has deservedly cemented his place for the next few series. One big reason for Pant's success was his positive intent to score runs, which the other 3 seemed to lack to a good extent.

All-rounders have been decent but need to improve more

Ashwin has been decent as a bowling all-rounder in both series, picking up a wicket or two in most of the innings in conditions that didn’t have too much for him. But maybe he could have done slightly better in England, especially in the 4th Test on a turning pitch. He also made small contributions with the bat in both series, a good example being his 29 and 33* in the 2nd Test Vs England at Lord’s when the other batsmen fell cheaply. He also got a couple of important thirties lower down the order in SA.

Hardik Pandya didn’t have a great outing in the SA series, which was also his first overseas series. Apart from the 93 in the first Test, he added only 26 runs in his next 5 innings combined. He made a significant improvement in England, where was able to get to 20s and 30s on a more consistent basis and also scored a match-defining half-century. With the ball too, Pandya has improved a lot from SA (3 wickets in 3 matches), as he was amongst the wickets on quite a few occasions in England. Though he has a lot more to improve on, he is showing progress with every series which is a good sign. But with Jadeja putting up a good performance in the last Test, it would be interesting to see who the selectors prefer in the near future.

Pace bowlers have been at their lethal best

The pace bowling trio of Bumrah, Ishant and Shami were at their best in both tours. All of them were able to bowl fast, accurately, at the stumps and more importantly swing and seam the ball. They reaped their rewards as they were able to do all of the above consistently. Add to this Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s swing and stump-to-stump bowling and India might have formed their most potent pace bowling attack in the last 8-10 years.

Despite some of the pacers having better numbers to show in the SA series as compared to the England series where they let the English lower order score, the pacers were very impressive overall in both the series. These pacers have learnt from their mistakes during their previous tours and have developed more control over their bowling and credit should be given to their bowling coach Bharat Arun for this improvement.

Kohli as a captain needs to learn from his mistakes

Kohli is going through a tough phase as India's Test captain

The role of a captain is very important in a team, both during victories and defeats. In Kohli’s case, some of his team selections have been baffling to the say the least, especially the one where Rohit was given preference over Rahane for the initial part of the SA series when the former wasn’t even considered in the home Tests. And his chopping and changing policy has affected the confidence of quite a few players, as quoted by a player in a recent interview. Though Kohli might have implemented them with good intentions, he needs to understand how the players are getting affected by these decisions and realize that a player is only as good as his captain believes him to be. Kohli is still young when it comes to overseas captaincy and he needs to learn some of these aspects through his mistakes and improve as a captain.

To conclude, India’s twin overseas Test defeats can be attributed mainly to the fact that their batting lineup isn’t proper yet. Some of the experienced players aren’t putting their hand up enough and some of the players are youngsters who are just making their way in the Test format. To experiment and rectify all these problems would require at least 3-4 Test series. After playing at home for long, all of India’s batting problems were exposed at once in SA this year. And in between the SA and England series, India played only 1 Test match, which is definitely not enough to rectify even one problem, leave alone all. As much as we want our Indian team to win abroad, we should also be practical enough to realize what is possible within this short time. The team showed improvements on various aspects in England compared to SA and if we can keep making constant progress with every series, we will surely become one of the best travelling teams in maybe 10-12 months from now.