2018 is turning out to be a nightmare year for most of the Indian batsmen. All those batsmen who were scoring fifties and hundreds for fun at home in the last two and three years are struggling even to score in double digits.
This year India has played five Tests away from home (3 in South Africa and 2 in England) and in those 5 Tests, except captain Virat Kohli no one could score anything substantial. And in the 10 innings of these five Tests, a total of six fifty-plus scores have been scored by Indian batsmen and 4 of them came from Virat Kohli's bat.
India could have done better had other Indian batsman supported captain Kohli who scored more than 500 runs and was leading run scorer in South Africa from either side and has also scored most runs in India - England Test series.
Here is a look at India's top order batsmen's home and away from performance in Test cricket since Jan 2016 -
1. At home since Jan 2016 -
Player | Tests | Inns | NO | Runs | Avg | HS | 100 | 50 |
Virat Kohli | 15 | 26 | 3 | 1862 | 80.95 | 243 | 7 | 3 |
Cheteshwar Pujara | 17 | 29 | 2 | 1640 | 60.74 | 202 | 5 | 9 |
Murali Vijay | 15 | 25 | 0 | 1168 | 46.72 | 155 | 6 | 3 |
KL Rahul | 12 | 19 | 1 | 848 | 47.11 | 199 | 1 | 8 |
Ajinkya Rahane | 15 | 26 | 2 | 745 | 31.04 | 188 | 1 | 3 |
R Ashwin | 17 | 22 | 0 | 502 | 22.81 | 72 | 0 | 4 |
Shikhar Dhawan | 4 | 7 | 0 | 317 | 45.28 | 107 | 1 | 2 |
- Five Indian batsmen average more than 45 in home Test matches since the start of 2016 and total 21 hundreds have been scored by these batsmen.
2. In Sri Lanka and West Indies since Jan 2016 -
Player | Tests | Inns | NO | Runs | Avg | HS | 100 | 50 |
Virat Kohli | 7 | 8 | 1 | 412 | 58.85 | 200 | 2 | 0 |
Cheteshwar Pujara | 6 | 6 | 0 | 371 | 61.83 | 153 | 2 | 0 |
Murali Vijay | 2 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
KL Rahul | 5 | 5 | 0 | 378 | 75.60 | 158 | 1 | 3 |
Ajinkya Rahane | 7 | 8 | 3 | 472 | 94.40 | 132 | 2 | 2 |
R Ashwin | 7 | 7 | 0 | 367 | 52.42 | 118 | 2 | 1 |
Shikhar Dhawan | 6 | 8 | 0 | 496 | 62.00 | 190 | 2 | 1 |
- total 11 hundreds have been scored by all these Indian batsmen and among the top order batsmen only Murali Vijay couldn't score in triple figures who played only one innings and missed remaining Test matches due to injury.
3. In South Africa and England in 2018 -
Player | Tests | Inns | NO | Runs | Avg | HS | 100 | 50 |
Virat Kohli | 5 | 10 | 0 | 526 | 52.60 | 153 | 2 | 2 |
Cheteshwar Pujara | 4 | 8 | 0 | 118 | 14.75 | 50 | 0 | 1 |
Murali Vijay | 5 | 10 | 0 | 128 | 12.80 | 46 | 0 | 0 |
KL Rahul | 4 | 8 | 0 | 65 | 8.12 | 16 | 0 | 0 |
Ajinkya Rahane | 3 | 6 | 0 | 105 | 17.50 | 48 | 0 | 0 |
R Ashwin | 4 | 8 | 1 | 175 | 25.00 | 38 | 0 | 0 |
Shikhar Dhawan | 2 | 4 | 0 | 71 | 17.75 | 26 | 0 | 0 |
- Only 2 hundreds and both hundreds have been scored by Virat Kohli and rest batsmen could score only one fifty among them.
4. The difference in Test batting average at home and combined Test batting average in South Africa and England since Jan 2016 -
Cheteshwar Pujara: 45.99
KL Rahul: 39.03
Murali Vijay: 33.92
Shikhar Dhawan: 27.53
Ajinkya Rahane: 13.54
R Ashwin: -2.19