India no longer has more losses than wins in Test cricket: Data Premium

Dominance at home since the 1990s and competitiveness in away games since the 2000s have helped

India’s players celebrate after winning the 5th Test match against England by an innings and 64 runs, at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, in Dharamsala

India beat England in Dharamshala in the final Test to win the five-match series 4-1. This cricket match marked several records. In particular, for the first time in Indian Test cricket history, the number of overall wins matched the number of losses. This mean that India’s win-loss (wins divided by losses: W/L) ratio is now 1.

Table 1 | The table shows the win-loss ratio of teams currently in Test cricket.

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India is currently fifth among teams with a W/L ratio of 1 or more, with Australia’s ratio of 1.78 leading all the teams while Pakistan’s 1.04 is just above India’s (Table 1). Only 12 teams have played international Test cricket.

Chart 2 | The chart shows the cumulative number of wins, losses, and draws (including ties, abandoned and cancelled Tests) for India over time since the team played its first Test in 1932. 

It shows that the number of losses and wins became equal in 2024. India now has 178 wins and losses each in 581 Tests.

Chart 3 | The chart shows a method called rolling averages used to analyse sets of 83 Tests at a time. We then calculate the average share of wins, losses, draws/ties for each set. For every new set, we move forward by 7 Tests to see how the averages change over time (83*7 = 581 Tests). The first data point on the chart is for Tests 1 to 83, the next is for Tests 8 to 90, and so on, ending with Tests 499 to 581.

For instance, in Tests 197 to 279 played by India between 1982 and 1993, the team won over 10% (lowest win % for any of the periods), lost close to 30%, and drew 60% of its games. Using this method we can also find out the period when India had more wins than losses and the tide began to turn.

Note how from Tests 309 to 391, played between 1997 and 2006, India’s wins have always been more than the number of losses registered. This period marked the decisive break when India became a net winning Test team.

Table 4 | The table lists out the home and away records for the pre-1990s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. 

India had a win/loss ratio of 0.9 at home prior to the 1990s but a poor away record — 13 wins and 54 losses in 118 games for a W/L ratio of 0.24.

But in the 1990s, a dramatic increase in home wins was observed, coinciding with the preparation of spin-friendly wickets during this period. India’s home record in the 1990s shows 17 wins and 5 losses in 30 Tests for a Home-W/L of 3.4, even as India registered only one away win and 15 losses in 40 games for an Away-W/L of 0.07.

Since the 2000s, however, India has retained its home dominance. This peaked in the 2010s, when India’s Home-W/L went up to 9.25 (37 wins and just four losses in 50 Tests).

Also in the 2000s, India had its best away record — 19 wins and 19 losses in 56 games for an Away-W/L of 1.0 and which reduced marginally in the 2010s and 2020s to 0.76 and 0.9, respectively, but was way above the 1990s and pre-1990s mark.

In sum, the Indian team became a formidable home team in the 1990s and also became quite competitive in away Tests since the 2000s. Thanks to an outstanding spin duo of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, India was near-invincible at home in the 1990s and the better part of the 2000s.

After Kumble and Singh retired, R. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and others, besides an effective pace bowling attack, helped the Indian team scale new peaks at home in the 2010s and 2020s. A balanced bowling attack and a strong batting line-up helped the team weather challenges in away games in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s and have kept it competitive.

With inputs from Kartikeya Date

vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in, srinivasan.vr@thehindu.co.in

Source: ESPNcricinfo’s Statsguru