India's pace revolution: The fast bowlers have joined the home party now

"To win a Test match you need to take 20 wickets" - that is something we have heard multiple times over the years, with the likes of Steve Waugh making it a point to stress that it's the bowlers who win a team Test matches. It's not that India didn't have great fast bowlers earlier, but cricket is a team game and individual brilliance can make you win battles (small passages of play), but not the whole war. Things started changing for the better towards the turn of the century when India started winning abroad regularly and also maintained their stranglehold at home. Indian spinners made touring batsmen dance to their tunes on dust-bowls to remain a formidable force at home. Indian pacers used to bowl with the red cherry just to take the shine off the ball and make it ready for the spinners to go for the kill. In the process if the pacers used to get any wickets, then it would be considered a bonus. Touring batsmen who were adept at playing spin, used to be successful with the willow. But things are changing. The trend over the last few years has been one of Indian pacers joining the party that is India enjoying prolonged long spells of Test wins at home. The two Test series win vs Sri Lanka recently was India's 15th consecutive Test series win at home. Let's analyse this closely, taking the Tests India have won over the last few years as the benchmark. The first period we considered was from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2016. In this time period Team India won 16 of 18 Tests played at home, with 2 draws If we look at the overall number of wickets taken in Test wins from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2016, the numbers tell us that the pacers took 68 wickets, while the spinners took 242 wickets.

Stats credit: Rajesh