Why have India struggled in England?
Playing the moving ball has been a problem, as has been the inability to start well and refusing to give spinners enough wide berth
Kolkata: Don’t let the euphoria of the previous drawn tour of England create any hype: India’s overall record is still dismal. In the four tours of England since 2011, India have lost 13 out of 19 Tests, winning just 4, marginally worse than their record in Australia during the same time—5 wins and 11 defeats in 21 matches.
Since series results give a better context, England seem more daunting than Australia where India have won in 2018-19 and 2020-21, curiously because of the draws (5 overall, compared to 2 in England) in Sydney on both tours. England hasn’t witnessed any such resilience from India.
Which is why when you take away the 2-2 draw in the 2021-22 tour, the rest have resulted in resounding defeats—0-4 in 2011, 1-3 in 2014 and 1-4 in 2018.
England isn’t as imposing as Australia or South Africa as a destination. More inexplicable is the contrasting performance of a team that seemed to be on a roll in Australia and even came close to winning a series in South Africa where both bounce and seam can be discomforting.
Not to forget, India have been playing five-Test series in England for the past three tours, giving them ample time to get used to the conditions, however inclement, with the advantage of very little travel and the Dukes ball which, with its pronounced hand-stitched seam and generous seam movement, is pretty similar to the SG balls widely used in India. And yet, the results haven’t been comforting. Why?
Nervous starts to long tours
India’s record in the first Tests in England since 2011 is disappointing, standing at two defeats and two draws, the last of which came in 2021 because of rain that had washed out the fifth day’s play at Nottingham.
Hitting the ground running, among other things, puts the opposition on notice apart from creating a winning momentum. Curiously for India, their record in Australia is much better—defeats in 2011, 2014 and 2020 and wins in 2018 and 2024. Even South Africa has witnessed better results—defeats in 2010, 2018 and 2023; a draw in 2013 and a win in 2021, at Centurion of all places.
Every tour, a team starts from scratch irrespective of history. With England however, India still had the familiarity of Lord’s being the first port of call for two (2011 and 2018) out of the four tours since 2011. India lost miserably both times.
England moving the opening Test to Leeds, where they have won six out of seven Tests in the last decade, thus looks like a plan well conceived. What better way of psychology outplaying the visitors than putting them at a ground where they know the ball can zip around all day?
Brittle batting support
You need solid technique, apart from a fair bit of luck, to work your way around that wicked blend of overhead conditions and a ball that can have its own mind. Cheteshwar Pujara was defensively solid, but was often wanting when it came to engineering quick turnarounds.
There was a space where Virat Kohli used to flourish, almost snatching games away from bowlers. 2018 was once such series, where Kohli overcame his off-side jitters, scored 593 runs at an average of 59.3 and still England won 4-1. Reason? No other batter could average over 40 against the swinging ball in the entire series.
Pujara came close with 39.71, a hundred and a fifty. But in the context of a five-match series, that is seriously under-par for a side’s second best performer. It has reflected poorly on India’s overall returns as well, with the top 5 accounting for an average of 30.99 in England, compared to 36.13 in Australia over the same time.
Kohli was a runaway success in Australia, scoring seven hundreds. But also prolific were Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, who have three and two hundreds respectively. In England however, the opening bowling combination of James Anderson and Stuart Broad nullified them completely. Kohli flickered a bit in 2018, as did KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant, with two hundreds each. But the highs were too few and too far apart.
Scant belief in spinners
More flabbergasting has been the way India shelved their spin bowlers whenever an England tour beckoned. Ravichandran Ashwin had featured in only seven Tests across three tours of England in his career, bowling just over 200 overs in 11 innings and still returning a respectable average of 28.11 and a strike rate of 66.7. Ravindra Jadeja was often the solitary spinner in the attack, and frankly wasted on quite a few flat surfaces where the ball neither gripped nor turned. Thus in an attempt to add more batting depth, India lost considerable bowling edge.
Half of that vaunted spin bowling combination remains after Ashwin’s sudden retirement in Australia. The batting order too has undergone a drastic makeover, now that Kohli isn’t playing Tests anymore. A bulk of the current side hasn’t ever played in England. Change is the name of the game but unless India learn from their tactical mistakes in the previous tours, success in England might be hard to achieve.
