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Home Advantage

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?
 

anil1405

International Captain
Standard of fast bowling in general has seen a decline which is why arguably teams don't give a fight in away tests, as they used to earlier. Proteas have been successful tourists over the last decade coz of Steyn. Amla, Kallis and co. have been scoring runs overseas but its Steyn's wickets which have arguably been more influential in away victories. More batsmen friendly pitches in modern era might have had an impact on the lack of quality fast bowlers. Hopefully this is just one of those passing phase in cricket where we are witnessing dearth of fast bowlers. With talented young fast bowlers emerging from certain countries, lets hope we get to see 4-5 great ones in years to come.
 

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
There are loads of good fast bowlers around right now, more than there have been for years. In fact that there are so many is probably one of the main reasons that we have seen so many thrashings of late.
 

NasserFan207

International Vice-Captain
Play more domestic cricket, overseas. Boring answer but definitely the truth.

But, I also think a lot of teams are in a transition phase, losing their experienced players. As time goes on, they'll compete better overseas.
 
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cnerd123

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Could it have something to do with the experience level of players currently in the Test sides?

A lot of sides are youngish; the players who have performed well in overseas tours of late are generally those who have been around for a while (Warner a notable exception).

Could be that with a generally young crop of cricketers forming the core of most Test sides, they have lacked the experience to perform in foreign conditions.
 

theegyptian

International Vice-Captain
Speculation on my part but a couple of other thoughts

The tours are so compacted with tests so close that it's very hard for teams to come back once they are down. Also with increased media intrusion/public interest and camera phones etc it's very hard for tourists to get away from the grind of nets, hotel and matches and relax/refresh between tests.

Test cricket may simply not mean as much to some players as it did in the past. You play so much cricket over different formats there is inevitably gonna be some fatigue and grind. Players get paid more to play IPL where there is a more relaxed attitude- some players may get into that comfort zone and struggle to really motivate themselves fully to the more mental side of test cricket. Once they are down the team as a whole struggle to find the motivation or energy to lift their performance. All of this is likely to be more prevalent away from home when the player is away from their family for long periods.
 

Daemon

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There are loads of good fast bowlers around right now, more than there have been for years. In fact that there are so many is probably one of the main reasons that we have seen so many thrashings of late.
Yeah this.

Steyn
Harris
Johnson
Southee
Boult
Morkel
Philander
Anderson
Broad
Junaid
Roach

All quality. Then you have the roughly 300 Australian youngsters that are injured/haven't debuted and India having 3 bowlers that can bowl 140+. It's a good time for quick bowling.
 

anil1405

International Captain
There are loads of good fast bowlers around right now, more than there have been for years.
You are right. There are many good fast bowlers but not great, and thats what I meant by standard of bowling coming down. Not so long ago there were great fast bowlers who used to hunt well in pairs; Ambrose & Walsh, Wasim & Waqar, Donald & Pollock, McGrath & Gillespie. Apart from them there were good bowlers like Hoggard, Caddick, Ntini, Akhtar, Zaheer, Fidel Edwards, Gul and others.

The fast bowlers we have now are good (barring Steyn) and probably a bit inexperienced plus injury prone. The amount of pace bowling talent in Australia that we are talking about since over few years probably hasn't materialised yet. Injuries to the likes of Pattinson, Cummins and co. haven't helped. And its too bad that Rhino has debuted after 30. A decade of Rhino & Pattinson/Haze bowling in tandem would have given the cricketing fans something to cherish. New Zealand have a bunch of good fast bowlers at the moment who could develop into great bowlers in years to come. Too bad that Roach stays injured most of the time. Pakistan don't seem to play enough tests these days.

For bowlers like McGrath, Ambrose, Donald etc. pitches didn't matter most of the times and currently we just have Steyn who could bowl Proteas to victory on most pitches consistently.
 

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