Border-Gavaskar Trophy – India vs Australia – Why batting first hasn’t worked in India this time

“When you win the toss, bat. If you are in doubt, think about it, then bat. If you have very big doubts, consult a colleague, then bat.”

What’s happened could have something to do with a pattern observed by Ben Jones and Nathan Leamon in the excellent book Hitting Against The Spin: How Cricket Really Works. In the book, Jones and Leamon argue that teams should insert their oppositions on flat pitches, which usually begin to deteriorate only towards the end of day three, by which time both teams have usually batted once.

From this point on, the argument made in the book is that it’s easier for teams batting second to turn a first-innings lead into a win than for the team batting first. Unless a follow-on is involved, the team batting second only has to chase the target it has been set, while the team batting first often has to calculate the timing of a declaration: when, and with how big a lead.

“And the evidence seems to support this supposition,” the book says. “In [the first 93 Tests played in India in this century], when the team batting first got a lead, they went on to win 50 per cent of those matches. The team batting second, however, converted 70 per cent of their leads to victories. Although there were marginally fewer first innings leads for the team batting second, there were overall more wins.”

“It’s actually something I really thought of,” he said. “If you win the toss, what should we be doing? So I guess the three results that have come, the captains have preferred to lose the toss in that case. But usually that doesn’t happen. It’s maybe the first time that [the captain losing the toss] has gone on to win the game [all three times]. I don’t think that has ever happened in India.

It could well be a coincidence that the team batting second has won all three Tests. But ESPNcricinfo’s control data suggests that batting second may have been easier than batting first through this series.

Batting has been challenging across all four innings of the Test matches, but it may have been marginally more challenging in the first innings and the third, where batters have achieved control percentages of roughly 79 and 78 respectively, than in the second and fourth, where they have gone at 82 and 81.

Now we can disregard the fourth-innings figure, because the two run-chases so far have been of small targets, and there has been a drop-off in bowling intensity as the chases have neared completion. But is it significant that batting in the second innings has been roughly three percentage points easier than it has been in the first?

In Indore, it certainly seemed as if Australia’s spinners got the ball to turn more sharply, and quickly, on the first morning than their Indian counterparts did later in the day. It could have had something to do with the last bits of moisture that remained in an otherwise bone-dry pitch. Apart from aiding seam movement, moisture can help spinners too – the seam tends to grip the pitch a little more, and the leather to skid off it in a more pronounced manner.

In the days of uncovered pitches, it was reckoned that the most dangerous time for batting was not when the pitch was wet, but when it was “drying” – when there was a layer of moisture just below the dry topsoil.

In Delhi, wickets fell in clusters in each of the three morning sessions, and batting seemed to get significantly easier after lunch. This again could have been down to moisture, thanks to dew setting in in the chilly late-evening and early-morning periods, and overnight sweating under the covers.

There could certainly be something to the moisture theory, with control percentages rising from first to second innings in all three Tests. Delhi’s weather may have contributed to something of an evening out, which gave both bowling attacks windows to exploit during the three morning sessions.

But perhaps this is too much theorising, and we might be looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Rather than teams winning because they are getting the best of the conditions, there could be a case that the control figures simply reflect which team happens to be in the ascendancy.

It’s also the case that teams defending low first-innings totals have to move to defensive fields earlier than usual. It can lead to the strike rotating more often, and errors in line and length while bowlers adjust to having a different batter on strike.

It’s possible that teams batting second have got to bat in slightly less tricky conditions than teams batting first in this series. It’s certain, though, that the team batting second has begun its first innings in an advantageous position in two of the three Tests. It’s hard to say, therefore, if there has been any real advantage to batting second. It is, however, another immensely ponderable topic that this intriguing series has thrown up.