After the madness of IPL and 2 consecutive ODI series, the Sri Lankan tour of Team India will bring back the so called old magicians into the business. If the ODI team could not hold their front against the Lankan’s spinners, the same spinners will be facing an uphill task against India’s middle order which has given some headache to the best of attacks. India may not have won every test they have played, they may not have been as formidable as Australia, they may be blamed as inconsistent or loosing the tests in a session or two, but whatever good the team has done (they have had the best test arena in last decade or so as I have already discussed), some credit must be given to Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and even Sourav Ganguly. Sehwag also deserves some credit for team’s improved performance but let’s concentrate on Fab 4 as of now.

We can have a look at their individual records, how they have done in a winning cause or a losing cause or even to draw a match. But, batting is all about partnerships. Hence, let’s look at how they have partnered with each other.

Over the years, the typical batting order has been like this – Dravid at 3, Sachin at 4, Laxman/Ganguly at 5 or 6. At times, Dravid has come at 6 and Laxman at 3. Also at times Dravid has opened the innings. Anyhow, it would be safe to assume that Dravid, Sachin, Ganguly and Laxman have batted at 3-4-5-6 positions.  

Here “Inns” means the number of times a batsman has been involved with the other batsman. % 100 P’ship or %50 P’ship have been calculated as number of 100/50 partnerships divided by total partnerships. 50 plus P’ship is the summation of these two.

The table below shows how each one of them has been with the others in the partnerships when India has won a match. Not surprisingly, Sachin and Dravid top the list in terms of number of runs and numbers of innings as these two have been India’s best batsmen for quite sometime now. Over 50% of the times these two have had a 50+ partnership in case India has won the match. Surprise lies in Sachin and Ganguly’s data. They average over 71 in a winning cause and have had 50+ partnerships more than Sachin – Dravid combination. If anyone had any doubts on Sourav’s importance in the team as a batsman, here lies part of the answer. He has been as instrumental in winning matches as his other colleagues. Not surprisingly, Dravid – Laxman combination who has tormented Australians to a great extent, averages 76.45 in a winning cause. The record suggests that Dravid-Ganguly pair was the least preferred on crease if India had to win a test where as it was Sachin-Ganguly pair which benefitted them the most.   

All in all, these 4 average 62 per dismissal and 42.34% of the times make the partnership higher than 50 if India wins the match.

Coming to the draw matches, Sachin- Laxman pair and Dravid – Ganguly pair are the best bet where as Laxman – Ganguly don’t seem to spend much time together in draw matches. All in all, these 4 average 81.86 together in partnerships in draw matches and 45.28% of the times have a 50+ runs partnership. One interesting point he is - % of century partnerships increase by 12% and % of half century partnership decrease by 9%. Most of these draw matches have been those matches where middle order helped India getting a huge score but the bowler’s could not get the opposition in time. Not many of them would be the ones where India has saved the match in the 4^th innings as they have not had a great record doing that. Had the middle order shown the glimpse of this strong performance in the 4^th innings, India might have saved many defeats.

Now we come to the matches where India has lost a test match. All of them have a record worse than their overall record when India has lost a test. But what about the partnership records? Not surprisingly, the average partnership has been below 30 runs. Dravid-Laxman pair averages lowest when India has lost. This was the same pair who revived India in 2001 India-Australia series and repeated their heroics in the famous Adelaide test in 2004. But when Australia toured India, they beat India 2-1. One of the main reasons for that series defeat was failure of Dravid-Laxman pair. They scored only 83 in 4 innings at an average of 20.83. Australians had definitely done their homework.

Let’s look at Sourav’s partnership. He has the best record in % of century partnership as well as % of half century partnerships. Only in his case, total 50 plus partnership as a% of total partnership exceed 25% and overall average exceeds 30% with each of these three batsmen. His record may not be the best among these 4 but he surely bats well in partnerships.       

The analysis does not consider the quality of opposition, venue or situation of the match and could be debated. But, in a more holistic view, numbers do tell a story.   

 - Vibhash