Home vs Away

Few days ago, South Africa defeated India in India in a two match test series by 2-0 and became the first team to defeat India in India after 1987. In the second test match there was an innings defeat. India's performence at their home has been exceptionally well before this series but abroad their performence if not exceptionally then atleast has been very poor.

India defeated Australia sometime ago and they drew the series against Pakistan. Many people say that in India's success there has been a lot of contribuation of umpiring but I think that credit should not be taken away from them. Other important factor has been the pitches that they have prepared. In recent test series against Zimbabwe, the pitches were very slow and turning, simply the sort of pitches which help their bowling attack. Even in a test match, Ganguly shared the new ball with Srinath as all other regular bowlers were spinners.

Australia's record at their home has been quite good, same with West Indies and South Africa but they play quite good abroad which shows that these teams are strong. Though West Indies performence is declining day by day.

Every team has advantages when it is playing in their country, The grounds and stadiums are fimiliar to them, they are used to the conditions and most important of all they can prepare pitches of their choice. All these factors are really very important in a test match and the home team should take advantage of all these factors.

All good teams show good performence at home but their performence abroad if not equally good, then atleast should be acceptable. India's failure in this test series has brought a lot of humiliation to them as they could not defend the only distinction they had over the other teams.

Similarly, Pakistan had a humiliating defeat against Sri Lanka in One-Day series. Sri Lanka defeted Pakistan 3-0. Australia beat New Zelannd by 4-1. England is continuosly losing the test series at their home. Same is the case with West Indies. All this show that home team does not have much advantage of being at home and its the performance that matters the most.

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