India and The Toss

Lots of statements from commentators (both paid and unpaid) about the value of winning the toss and batting first in India.  Universally held, winning the toss is a big advantage and quite a few comments along the lines of, "once we lost the toss, we'd lost the game."

And I can see why people say this, logically if batting becomes harder over time, you want to bat earlier in the game.

But looking at the statistics there is very little support for this.  Using cricinfo's stats guru function it is possible to see what happened to the side batting first in each game played in India for the period from 2000.  There's a nice round 100 games in the period (doesn't include current test) and the stats for the 21st century are.

Bat 1  = Win =     32

Bat 1  = lose =     41

Bat 1 = Draw =    27

So across a decent sample size the evidence seems to suggest, in complete contrast to intuition, bat second.

Do I believe this?

Wellllll  ..... Not really.

A few things to put on the other side of the scales.  Over those 100 games India have batted first on 43 occasions. The best way to win tests in India is to er, be India.  So India batting second more often than first is a partial explanation for the apparent advantage to batting second.

Also if we focus in on the last five years the statistics flip, now batting first is the best option with 16 wins against 10 defeats.  But I think you have to be cautious with this, as the sample size gets smaller so does the possibility that what's being seen as a pattern is just random variation.  

Conclusion

I don't think the statistics give a clear picture.  If I was the England captain (admittedly unlikely) I think I'd be wary of batting second in India, despite the statistical evidence.  But although stats can't tell you everything they do show the "lose the toss lose the game" mantra is rarely, if ever, correct.  

Just looking at the current test match, clearly the pitch is turning a lot, but from what I've seen it's turned a lot from the start.  India may have a slight advantage from batting first, but I'd say the big factor is that they are good side who play particularly well at home.  A top three of two dashers followed by a plodder means they are well suited to pitches where the best place to bat is at the top of the order.  (England are understandably better set up for English conditions and 1,2,3 are really there to take the new ball and set things up for the strength of the batting at 4 - 7).

The brilliant, slightly mad, Pant is perfect for quick lower order runs (England could have countered with Buttler but you can't blame Indian soil for English rotation) and most importantly India have the best spinner in the world (They may well have had the second best as well if it wasn't for Jadeja's injury).  In this game Ashwin has taken 5:43, average 9, all other bowlers 16:458, average 29.

If you want to win in India, it's best to be India.