Sunday, November 23, 2008

Demystifitying Australia's "fearsome" batting lineup

With the retirements of Warne and McGrath and the decline of Gillespie, it was thought that Australia's continued excellence in batting would ensure that they remained the world's best side, even if the gap between Australia and other teams had narrowed. It is premature to claim that this is not so, but a simple analysis of the Australian batting lineup reveals an alarming disparity between performances at home and abroad. Let us examine the batting records home and away of the major Australian batsmen of the last decade as well as the team's more recent members.

Matthew Hayden-
With an astonishing record of 30 centuries in 99 Tests, Hayden is often described as one of the game's greatest openers. Hayden averages 52.04 in all Tests, but his home and away averages look like the records of two different players. At home, he averages 61.07 in 52 Tests with an almost Bradmanesque 21 centuries and a strike rate of 63.14. Away, his average drops to 41.69- the record of a good but not great player, like Sourav Ganguly- with just nine centuries in 47 matches. Clearly Hayden's reputation depends at least in part on flat, true Australian pitches.

Ricky Ponting-
Unlike with Hayden, there is no question about Ponting's greatness, as he has saved and won matches on all kinds of pitches in all kinds of situations. Yet even he is far more dominant at home, averaging 61.58 with 19 centuries in 69 tests. Away, he averages 50.39- still excellent but nowhere near as high- with 15 tons from 52 tests. By contrast, Sachin Tendulkar- whose overall average of 54.30 is significantly lower than Ponting's 57.06- averages 55.07 at home and 53.70 away, with 23 of his 40 centuries having come outside India.

Mike Hussey-
Hussey's somewhat mediocre 2008 has seen his average drop from 82 to 64 and it looks like it will settle in the mid 50s, which is fair for such a good player in this age. At this relatively early stage in his career, Hussey has an even greater home-away disparity than Hayden, averaging 74.95 in Australia and 51.50 abroad. The more he plays, the more one assumes these averages will move closer together although is fair to conclude that a significant disparity will remain.

Michael Clarke-
Clarke's overall average of 45.89 is not high by modern Australian standards, but perfectly respectable. Since he's played 40 tests it is fair to use his current statistics to make generalizations about his performance. Despite having begun his career with a matchwinning knock of 151 against India at Bangalore in 2004 his away average of 40.09 shows poorly against his more typically Australian home average of 53.08.

Justin Langer-
The recently retired Langer had a fine career, scoring 23 centuries in 105 tests. Hayden is usually considered the superior player, but not on the basis of their away records- Langer's away average of 41.73 is effectively equal to Hayden's. At home, he averages 48.65 which shows that while the home-away disparity is significant it is not nearly as alarming as Hayden's.

Andrew Symonds-
Like Hussey, Symonds is a recent entrant to Test cricket and thus is usually considered part of the team's medium-term future despite being 33. So far, he is consistent with this teammates in performing markedly better at home: he averages 48.57 at home and just 34.83 away, although since has played only 23 Tests this may change.

It has clearly been established, thus, that most current and recently retired Australian batsmen are gluttonous at home and merely decent abroad. There are two notable exceptions to this rule, and to my mind they constitute (with the exception of Ponting) the only truly great batsmen of the era of Australian dominance.

Steve Waugh-
Waugh's 200 against the West Indies in April 1995 is often seen as the innings that ushered in the new order of Australian supremacy. In 89 Tests at home, he averaged 47.58, a record bettered by every single batsman listed above. What is really telling about Waugh is his away record- in 76 away Tests, he averaged 55.85, an astonishing record that is superior to that of any other modern batsman bar Dravid.

Adam Gilchrist-
The greatest wicket-keeper bat in the history of cricket averaged a more than respectable 45.87 at home. Away, however, he averaged 50.24 with a ridiculous strike rate of 83.76 and ten centuries in 38 Tests- in short, in away Tests he was perhaps the Australian to be most feared of all.

The fact that two of the three Australians who have batted exceptionally away from home are now retired is a particularly troubling fact. The struggles of the current lineup against reverse-swing and spin in India was a reminder that, away from home, most of them become half the players that they are at the MCG or Adelaide Oval. A glance at the stats of Warne and McGrath shows that both averaged even less away than at home- for McGrath, 22.43 at home versus 21.35 away and for Warne, 26.39 at home versus 25.50 away. Both bowlers had significantly better strike rates while playing away from home. What all of this to me shows is that Australian success away from home has been derived most of all from the success of its bowlers. Its defeats in India, for instance, were due in no small part to the ease with which its batsmen played Warne, who has led Australia to series wins in both Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Another common conception is that it is not the Australian but the Indian batsmen who are successful at home and vulnerable abroad. I have already shown that this is not the case with Tendulkar and Dravid. How about the others?

Home Away
Ganguly 42.97 41.56
Laxman 48.15 43.22
Sehwag 53.10 50.98
Dhoni 41.10 33.51


Of course Indian batsmen perform better at home- this is true of almost all batsmen, with Waugh, Gilchrist and Dravid being highly unusual cases. Yet as these stats show, the home-away disparities for the Indian lineup are usually small and in the case of Ganguly and Sehwag, virtually irrelevant. I am not one to argue that India is now a better Test team than Australia and statistics are by no means foolproof but these particular statistical trends are, I think, an explosion of the idea that Australia still has a batting lineup that dominates attacks all over the globe.

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