Best and worst batsmen away from home in Test cricket

Not all batsmen with plenty of runs and good averages were good in foreign conditions as good as they were at home, and vice-versa. Bharath Seervi reveals numbers to check the best and the worst batsmen away from their home conditions.

A batsman’s greatness is proved by his away performances against opposition bowlers at their den. Not many players have career aggregates balanced in terms of home and away performances. Some have been excellent at home but flops overseas. On the other hand, some have done better overseas than at home.

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To analyse the best and the worst batsmen away from home, let us begin with a batsman’s differences in batting average of home and away. Of batsmen with a minimum of 3,500 runs in Test career, Mohinder Amarnath has the highest difference between away and home performances. He averaged just 30.44 in India but 51.86 away from home. His average difference is 21.42 towards away venues. Mark Butcher is the only other batsman who has difference in home and away average of more than 20.The table below lists the other batsmen in detail. Mohinder Amarnath: A saga of fearless

Best batsmen away from home in Tests (Min. 3,500 career runs)

–    Of those with 7,500 runs Graeme Smith was the best batsman away from home.

Let us now check batsmen who have scored heavily at home but failed away. The list is headed by Clyde Walcott, who averaged 69.84 in his home country but only 40.47 outside West Indies (difference: 29.37). Mudassar Nazar is the other batsmen with average difference of more than 25 between home and away towards away venues.

Worst batsmen away from home in Tests (Min. 3,500 career runs)

–    Among those with 7,500 runs, Michael Clarke has been the worst batsman away from home. He averaged 62.05 in Australia and only 39.50 outside.

–    Two of three Ws of West Indies appear in this list.

–    There are some great names in the list — Denis Compton, Dilip Vengsarkar and Desmond Haynes.

Let us see who scored the highest percentage of their career runs away from home and the converse. The percentage depends on also the number of innings played away from home compared to in the home country.

Highest % of Test career runs scored away from home (Min. 3,500 Test career runs)

–    Mohinder tops here as well.

–    Among those with 7,500 runs, Viv Richards has the highest percentage of runs away from home – 63.28%.

Lowest % of Test career runs scored away from home (Min. 3,500 career runs)

–    Of those with 7,500 runs, Graham Gooch has the lowest percentage of runs away from home (33.52%).

–    There are some great cricketers in this list — Compton, Greg Chappell, Don Bradman and David Boon.

Trivia: Chappell brothers

Ian Chappell had a higher batting average away (43.02) compared to his home average (41.86). Greg, on the other hand, averages more at home (54.40) than away (52.96). Ian scored 49.90% of his career runs outside Australia compared to Greg’s 36.50%.

Difference in average and % of runs away from home for the 10000+ run getters in Tests

–    Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid are the only two to score more than 50% of their runs away from home.

–    Mahela Jayawardene didn’t even score 40% of his runs outside Sri Lanka.

–    Going by averages, Allan Border is the best overseas batsman on the top table, and Mahela is the worst.

(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SeerviBharath and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SeerviCricket)