Explained: Why England have better chance of winning ongoing Test series in India

The loss for India against England in first Test at Hyderabad has renewed the focus on pitches and the capability of India batters while playing spin as well. The home team was thoroughly outplayed in both the departments by the touring English side and it is visible in numbers. England's Ollie Pope leads the run chart after first match with 197 runs including 196 in the second innings while debutant spinner Tom Hartley leads the bowling chart with nine scalps to his name.

For India, KL Rahul is the batter with most runs - 108 in two innings while pacer Jasprit Bumrah has taken most wickets (9) despite India fielding three spinners in Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel.

The result is not something new, in fact in the three series played in India after the World Test Championship (WTC) 2021 final, Indian players have not been able to play better cricket than the touring sides in both departments, i.e., batting and bowling. While India has managed to win all three series, it is a pot waiting to boil over when India loses one of the home Test series and by the looks of it, England have a very good chance of winning their first red-ball series in India since 2012.

Also Read:India batting coach Vikram Rathour backs young batters to come good after first Test loss

Here's the data from three series' which have taken place in India since 2021 WTC final:

New Zealand tour of India for two Tests

During the series, Mayank Agarwal was the highest run getter from both sides with 242 runs in four innings and Shreyas Iyer was overall second with 202 runs. New Zealand's Tom Latham came third with 163 runs. For India Axar Patel, however, scored more runs than Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (one Test only) and Ajinkya Rahane. While for the Kiwis, it was their batters only who scored runs, albeit in small numbers.

As for bowling, Ajaz Patel took 17 wickets including a record 10-wicket haul while Ashwin and Patel combined took 23 wickets. Moreover, Kiwi pacers were also effective on so called spin friendly Indian pitches with Tim Southee and Kyle Jamieson taking 14 wickets combined while India's third and fourth highest wicket-takers, Jadeja and Jayant Yadav, took a total of 10 wickets, which shows the bit of ineffectiveness of Indian spinners on their home ground.

Sri Lanka tour of India for two Tests

Against Sri Lanka, it was Ravindra Jadeja, once again an all-rounder like Patel, who finished at the top of run charts with 201 runs in three innings. He finished ahead of the India batters namely Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Mayank Agrawal. Among the bowlers, Bumrah finished just two wickets behind Ravi Ashwin's 12 - highest in the series and two clear of Ravindra Jadeja's eight - once again showing the effectiveness of pacers on Indian pitches.

For Sri Lanka, Lasith Embuldeniya and Praveen Jayawickrama combined for 15 wickets in comparison to Jadeja and Ashwin's 20 wickets - showing Indian batters are as vulnerable as the visitors against spin.

Australia tour of India for four Tests

Visiting batter Usman Khawaja (333) emerged as the highest run-scorer and the only batter with more than 300 runs. Virat Kohli was second with 297 runs but apart from him, noother batter could cross 250 except Axar Patel who scored 264 runs in just five innings.

As for the bowlers, Ashwin and Jadeja took 47 wickets between them while Aussies, who had Nathan Lyon and debutant Todd Murphy in the side, finished with 36 between them - a performance almost at par given the experience of the Aussie duo. For the third spinner role, India had Axar who took three wickets in seven innings while Aussie Matthew Kuhnemann took nine in five innings.

Overall, the Indian spinners had 50 wickets among them while the Aussies, two of them hugely inexperienced in comparison, took 45 wickets along with Lyon.

In the ongoing series, the Indian spinners have managed 14 wickets with Ashwin taking six while Jadeja and Axar chipping in with five and three, respectively. For England, Hartley and part-time spinner Joe Root have only been suffice to manage 14 wickets while Jack Leach and Rehan Ahmed also picking up four between them.

The above instances clearly show that not only foreign batters have become better at playing the Indian spinners, the visitors have been able to contain the Indian batters, who are generally thought as better players of spin.

If the trend continues, England will surely have a brighter chance of beating India at home in a Test series, a feat last achieved last by England only in 2012 when they had won the four-match series 2-1.