Cabinet96
Global Moderator
The mixture of conditions and the difference between playing home and away has always been one of the best things about cricket. But IMO the contrast between sides fortunes home and away has become way too extreme. I haven't really looked at any stats to prove it's an issue which has become worse, but some of the facts from recent years are scary. Australia have won their last ten home tests, starting from December 2012 and are seemingly on course for numbers 11 and 12. Despite this, from the same period onwards they've only managed to win two of their last 14 tests away from home. Their three previous series against India before this one featured the home side winning every test played. India have won one test overseas since their boxing day win four years ago, losing 15 in the process. The last time England won a test match away from home was 2012 and Samit Patel and Zaheer Khan were playing. There's been a few exceptions. Sri Lanka in England earlier in the year and New Zealand in the UAE recently standout. But similar examples have been few and fare between in the last few years.
So I guess there's two things I was hoping to discuss. One is theories as to why home advantage is currently having such a huge effect. Less preparation time for tours is a regular theory, but even when sides have had a decent amount of preparation they've often still struggled, like in the last Ashes series. I guess my favourite argument is that there haven't been any really dominant sides like there were in the 70's and 80's with the Windies and in the 90's and early 00's with Australia. Sides like India, England and recent Australia have been decent sides with some good players who are capable of performing to a high level at home, but aren't so dominant they can replicate the same success away from home. The few times sides have had success away from home it's been with real trump card players dominating, the likes of Kallis, Amla and Steyn for SA, Warner and Johnson for Australia and to a lesser extent Cook, KP, Anderson and Swann for England. Maybe recent home dominance is actually a sign teams are quite evenly matched?
The other issue is what can potentially be done to neutralise it. You obviously wouldn't want to reduce the character of different conditions and make everywhere the same, but I think most would admit it's boring watching the same sides get drubbed in the same places series after series. In the Australia-India tour thread Cribb said he's always maintained the idea that the away side should automatically win the toss. I'd never heard the idea before or seen it been discussed but I think it's quite a good one. Would certainly help to neutralise the conditions if the away side always got the better of them and would help them in team selection. I haven't really thought about any other potential ideas but I'm sure people have theories.
tl:dr version: So why is home advantage so extreme at the moment? And how can we make it so that it isn't in the future?
So I guess there's two things I was hoping to discuss. One is theories as to why home advantage is currently having such a huge effect. Less preparation time for tours is a regular theory, but even when sides have had a decent amount of preparation they've often still struggled, like in the last Ashes series. I guess my favourite argument is that there haven't been any really dominant sides like there were in the 70's and 80's with the Windies and in the 90's and early 00's with Australia. Sides like India, England and recent Australia have been decent sides with some good players who are capable of performing to a high level at home, but aren't so dominant they can replicate the same success away from home. The few times sides have had success away from home it's been with real trump card players dominating, the likes of Kallis, Amla and Steyn for SA, Warner and Johnson for Australia and to a lesser extent Cook, KP, Anderson and Swann for England. Maybe recent home dominance is actually a sign teams are quite evenly matched?
The other issue is what can potentially be done to neutralise it. You obviously wouldn't want to reduce the character of different conditions and make everywhere the same, but I think most would admit it's boring watching the same sides get drubbed in the same places series after series. In the Australia-India tour thread Cribb said he's always maintained the idea that the away side should automatically win the toss. I'd never heard the idea before or seen it been discussed but I think it's quite a good one. Would certainly help to neutralise the conditions if the away side always got the better of them and would help them in team selection. I haven't really thought about any other potential ideas but I'm sure people have theories.
tl:dr version: So why is home advantage so extreme at the moment? And how can we make it so that it isn't in the future?