Bowling Depth

Why have visiting bats stopped having big series in India?

The quality of a bowling attack is basically the quality of its weakest bowler. There was a time when visiting teams in India would bring at least one batter who would torment the Indian side.

In the last 30 years, the list of such players is long - Jimmy Adams, Mathew Hayden, Andy Flower, Hashim Amla, Michael Clarke, Alastair Cook, Younis Khan, Damien Martyn, Darren Bravo, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Steven Smith, Joe Root, Michael Hussey, Mahela Jayawardene, Dinesh Chandimal, Neil McKenzie (remember him? He made 94 and 155 not out at Chepauk in March 2008), AB de Villiers, Prasanna Jayawardene, and so on.

Not many in this list feature after about 2013. Why is this? Is it because there aren’t any good batters in the world outside India these days?

Runs are not scored against the best bowlers in the opposition. Runs are scored, for the most part, against the change bowlers. This is an essential truth about Test cricket. It’s not the best players who decide who wins, but the worst.

From 1998 to 2008, the Indian attack in India was led by their ace spin twins, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. Harbhajan debuted in 1998 and Kumble retired in 2008. This pair took 466 wickets (AVE 26.2 runs per wicket, SR 60.2 balls per wicket) in 51 Tests in India. They averaged just over 9 wickets per Test between them. They bowled 28043 balls - about 92 overs per Test in India.

During these 10 years, other Indian bowlers in Tests in India managed 390 wickets (AVE 39.0, SR 79.4). They bowled 30970 balls.

After Kumble and/or Harbhajan Singh, the bowling which confronted visiting batters in Tests in India was comparatively harmless. About half the deliveries bowled by Indian bowlers at visiting batters in the Kumble-Harbhajan era would concede a total of 390 on average (compared to 262 on average against Kumble/Harbhajan). It is no wonder than so many visiting batters piled up so many big scores in India.

From 2013-23, which we can consider the Ashwin-Jadeja era, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have taken 442 wickets at 20/48 in 43 Tests in India. They average 10 wickets per Test. Other Indian bowlers during this period have taken 367 wickets at 25/50.

The support bowling for Kumble and Harbhajan Singh was 49% worse than them. The support bowling for Ashwin and Jadeja has been 25% worse than them. What’s more, the support bowling has been taking wickets at a rate which would still keep India more than just competitive in Tests. Whereas, the support bowling in the Kumble-Harbhajan era would almost never win a Test in India if left to their own devices.

In the last decade, after a batter has seen off a spell by Ashwin and/or Jadeja, the next bowler (and the next) is not easy to score off, or even to survive against. This is a privilege which Mathew Hayden enjoyed, but which Usman Khawaja doesn’t.

This contemporary Indian quality plays tricks on our minds. We start thinking that Usman Khawaja is average compared to Langer and Hayden and Smith and Amla and all the other giants who opened the batting for the visitors in India back in the day. Khawaja’s career record says that he isn’t. Replace Khawaja with any other regular in any of today’s batting orders, and the point remains.