Home Ground Advantage

By Adrian Meredith

MELBOURNE, Australia (TheSportsNEXT) November 18, 2012: In the past three years, these are the results in test cricket:

India: At home: 10-1 (90.9%) Away: 3-12 (20%) Improvement at home: 70.9%

Pakistan: At home: 5-1 (83.3%) Away: 7-10 (41.2%) Improvement at home: 42.1%

Sri Lanka: At home: 3-3 (50%) Away: 1-6 (14.3%) Improvement at home: 35.7%

West Indies: At home: 3-4 (42.9%) Away: 1-6 (14.3%) Improvement at home: 28.6%

England: At home: 12-3  (80%) Away: 7-6 (53.8%) Improvement at home: 26.2%

New Zealand: At home: 3-5 (37.5%) Away: 2-6 (25%) Improvement at home: 12.5%

Australia: At home: 10-4 (71.4%) Away: 7-4 (63.4%) Improvement at home: 8%

South Africa: At home: 5-4 (55.6%) Away: 6-1 (85.7%) Improvement at home -32.1%

Notes:

(1) Bangladesh have not won any games in the past 3 years, either home and away and hence have no home ground advantage.

(2) Zimbabwe have only played 3 tests, which is too small a data set to be useful.

(3) Draws are not included in the analysis - many of these are rain affected anyway and it is difficult to determine their usefulness.

Conclusions:

India have really unusual home conditions that other teams can't handle:

India is certainly a bit warmer and more humid than most other cricketing nations (though it can be hot and humid in the West Indies too) and their pitches tend to be dry and dusty, with slow and low bounce that suits spinners, and makes it hard for players that are used to higher bounce. South Africa, Sri Lanka and Australia have done the best in India; but still worse than they have done in other countries. It has been argued that there is nothing unfair about it - that other teams could also make pitches and conditions that are difficult for their opponents to handle too, they just haven't done it as well as India have. There is nothing in the rules to prohibit doctoring pitches and conditions to suit the home team and India are doing nothing wrong in doing it.

India are terrible away from home:

Most teams do a lot of work to try to get used to foreign conditions. Pakistan and Australia are even looking at using England's Duke ball in their domestic games so that England don't have such a huge home ground advantage. Teams practice on low and slow bounce pitches. They practice against spinners. And so forth. Yet apparently India don't, or at least not as much as other teams, and not as effectively. Perhaps this is due to money. Perhaps India's BCCI are poorer than most national boards and can't afford this level of coaching and preparation. Some fans claim that teams such as Australia (with only an 8% advantage at home, the second lowest) secretly cheat against India, and only India, by secretly preparing different pitches against them so that they can win every game against India at home, as some kind of secret revenge - something that they don't bother doing against anyone else.

South Africa are the fairest team:

It has long been stated that England, South Africa and Australia have the fairest home conditions for visiting teams, because each ground that they use are vastly different, some suiting pace, some spin, some swing, some good for batting, others good for bowling, and so forth. But now we have evidence to prove it. South Africa look very good out of this, and Australia look pretty good too - disproving any claims that Australia ever doctored their pitches. It does look bad for England too, another piece of information that the Duke ball is a very different ball to the others and grants England a huge home ground advantage. England, however, do not statistically have the greatest home ground advantage.

Pakistan don't suffer too much from not being able to play at home:

Pakistan was actually a pretty fair place to go to, cricketing wise, in terms of the playing surfaces used. While in the past they were accused of having biased umpires, not to mention that food and drinking water affected the health of some visiting teams, all of that has been dealt with now and it is quite fair. Sadly, of late, the fear of terrorism and violence against teams - since 9/11 but more recently with the attacks on the Sri Lankan team bus - has meant that nobody is prepared to play against them. Somewhat surprisingly, they now have the 2nd biggest home ground advantage, something that certainly wasn't the case in the past!

England vs India matches are the most pointless of them all:

Since the Future Tours Program started, there are a lot more one sided test series (and other international series) than there used to be, as teams are forced to play against each other when they often don't want to. Remember when Sri Lanka were terrible and nobody wanted to play against them? They complained bitterly, but the reality was that it forced them to improve and be good enough for other teams to want to play against them. This is no longer an incentive for Zimbabwe or Bangladesh. And, unfortunately, it means that we have to go through these hum drum pointless series that probably wouldn't be played if not for the Future Tours Programs. I might be wrong, of course, as perhaps there is some interest in India to see their team decimate an English team who never have any hope of winning in India, and perhaps similarly English fans enjoy winning every single game by huge margins in India. Nonetheless, if the Future Tours Program was dropped, then teams could "vote with their feet", so to speak, by refusing to play against teams that have unfair home conditions, either with an unfairly different Duke ball, or with unfair conditions. There are many reasons to get rid of the Future Tours Program, and I can't think of a single legitimate reason to keep it - but this just adds to the reasons for why it should be taken out.

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The Problem With Home Ground Advantage

By Adrian Meredith

MELBOURNE, Australia (TheSportsNEXT) November 18, 2012: As we all know, in any sport, the home team has some kind of home ground advantage.

Some teams play better at home than others, and some teams play worse away than others; but all teams would rather play at home. This is fine. The rankings really should reflect that it is harder to win away than at home - rankings that allowed England to climb up the rankings based on playing 75% of their matches, in all 3 formats, in the past 3 years, at home, much more than any other team! But the greater problem is that sometimes the advantage of playing at home is so great that it makes it pointless to play.

Consider India, where they have slow and dusty pitches, in heat and humidity that suits people from the subcontinent. Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh can handle it, and it is really no huge disadvantage for them; but teams from outside of the subcontinent have no hope. They deliberately make pitches that suit their spinners - knowing that they can play spin a lot better than other teams. It makes it just about impossible for teams from outside of the subcontinent to win. Sri Lanka will win occasionally and Pakistan can win too; but of course Bangladesh isn't as good a team. But even the all-conquering Australia side couldn't win in India. They won once, that few even remember; but otherwise they couldn't. Such is the unfair advantage that India have at home.

England, until recently, had no clear home advantage. Conditions were similar to that in New Zealand, South Africa or Australia, and those teams found it quite easy to play. But when they modified their "home" ball, the Duke ball, to have greatly different properties, reverse swinging much earlier, bouncing a lot more, and doing all sorts of things that other balls simply don't do, all of a sudden it was verging on impossible to beat England. Of course, Pakistan managed it, because they are masters of reverse swing, and South Africa recently managed it too, by virtue of having 3 of the best fast bowlers in the world.

These two teams, India and England, with the biggest, and most unfair, dare I say "cheating" home advantages, are currently opposing each other. They did it recently, as a "battle for top spot". But the problem is that India lost every match, in every format, by huge margins, in England, while England lost every match, in every format, by huge margins, in India. They were all incredibly boring, very one sided matches. It was, essentially, a matter of "home team wins".

Home ground advantage is one thing but there has to be a limit. When a team is able to manufacture a ball to suit their bowlers, and another is able to manufacture pitches and conditions to suit theirs, it has to be considered to be cheating.

I am all for variety in conditions; but there has to be a limit. We have neutral umpires; so why not have neutral groundsmen too? Or at least have a neutral groundsman observing conditions for international matches, to make sure that they are fair. And as for a Duke ball that is very different to every other kind of ball - in my opinion it should be banned. I see no reason why there is a need to have different balls in different countries. It is clear that the Duke ball, at least the current variation of it, is not a fair ball. Other teams shouldn't have to all practice with different balls in their domestic competitions to undo this unfair advantage.

Alternatively, of course, we can just have neutral venues for ALL INTERNATIONAL MATCHES. That would make it fair; but the problem is that then spectators would lose interest - all but the most die hard supporters, of course.

So India and England in particular, you guys are on notice. You guys are effectively cheating, ensuring that you win all matches at home, and it is unfair, and it is not good for spectators. So stop it!

As for other teams with home ground advantage, New Zealand has a cold and windy climate that suits extra slow bowlers - who they happen to have a lot of. Australia have at least a couple of extra bouncy pitches - though South Africa, New Zealand, England and Pakistan do too. Sri Lanka have some kind of advantage too, though it is nowhere near as much as India has. Bangladesh have an advantage too, they just don't take advantage of it. Pakistan don't play at home at the moment; but it wouldn't really matter if they did, as they have one of the smallest home ground advantages of any team. West Indies used to have a home ground advantage, with pitches and conditions that suit fast bowlers - but not because they bounce - rather because they slide into the batsmen, hurrying them up a bit - though nowadays that advantage is limited as their players aren't so great.

There are two teams that clearly stand out as cheating in terms of home ground advantage. In my opinion the worst is England but India aren't far behind. These two teams should be forced to stop their cheating home ground advantage and, to be blunt, play fair.

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