'Home advantage' - way too homely?

"What does one make of Pakistan cricket?" asked a thrilled, yet equally flummoxed Pakistani supporter, after his national team trounced Australia in the Emirates. One might pose that sort of question about anything 'Pakistan'. But here's the cricketing story. Only recently, Pakistan had lost their premier spinner to alleged chucking. On either side of that incident, they kept rotating their captains around like a game of roulette (on one occasion, when Shahid Afridi was asked if he was Pakistan's captain, his reply was "I don't know"). 

But then, all of a sudden, an unknown spinner turned up and proved to be even more lethal than the man he was meant to fill in for. Their captain - their most recent captain at the time of this writing, anyway - a man who had apparently sworn to stonewall his way into retirement, ratcheted up both the fastest 50 and the fastest 100 in one single historic Test innings. And the next thing you know, Australia had been soundly whacked 2-0 in a Test series they never seemed to have turned up for. History was made, and without so much as a fuss. Pakistan had beaten Australia in a bilateral tournament for the first time since 1994.

Home Sweet Home: Conditions were favorable; Pakistan won

It's yet too early to say if Pakistani cricket has really taken off. The only way to describe Pakistani cricket is - 'mercurial'. And nothing mercurial is ever predictable. But the outcome of this series certainly was, at the start. You might not have expected a trouncing of this sort, but everyone knew that Australia were in for a tough time. They were climbing up a hill, Pakistan were strolling along a flat plain. It was all down to 'home advantage'. Sure, this wasn't really Pakistan, but anyone who's been to the UAE would know that that country is nothing but 'little Pakistan'. And to be sure, the pitches were either bone dry or dead flat - nothing like the sort of green meadow Mitchell Johnson would have been hungry for.

Pakistan made good use of 'home' conditions. Much like everyone else in world cricket has been doing of late. Save for Australia and South Africa, who pretty much have similar conditions in their respective countries, every other bilateral series of note in recent times has been woefully lopsided in favor of the home team. India got thrashed in England recently. New Zealand pounded the West Indies at home. India then came back home and walloped the West Indies. And they've only begun their run of carnage on the Sri Lankans now. Pakistan, of course, have now beaten the hapless Australians.

Overall, it's been an absolute carnival for whoever is playing at home - except maybe Bangladesh, but they're yet outside the big league, so they're excused. To the spectator, it has been dour. Odds at the bookie have been discouraging too for those who bet, sensibly, in favor of the home team. Have home conditions gotten far too homely? Or are cricketers just bad tourists and better sightseers in the modern game?

In the previous decade or two, world cricket was used to seeing a dominant bully on the global stage - Australia. Ricky Ponting's Australia were the real deal. Hosts or tourists, setting or chasing, they started favorites, anywhere, anytime. Australia's dominance encouraged sides to push their own bar higher and higher, relentlessly, because the 'Roos could never be caught up with. One of those who greatly benefited from this exercise were Sourav Ganguly's Indian team. Traditionally poor at touring foreign lands, India suddenly found ways to win Test matches in England, Australia and South Africa.

But post 2008, Australia has been on the decline, and there's little doubt about it now, if there ever was. The likes of Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne were never going to be replaced. Sadly, no one else in the world has really taken up the baton from the Aussies either. While South Africa have shown little glimpses of dominance from time to time, they still are vulnerable in the subcontinent, in a way that Ponting's side seldom was. 

In result, world cricket has turned into a game of quid pro quo - you beat me at your place and I'll beat you at mine. Scheduling has helped too. Teams often play each other back-to-back, once in each side's backyard. Tight schedules further mean that there's little time to spend in adapting to foreign conditions. Series are often restricted to two Tests - fit for a world of business-like globetrotters.

But could pitches be held accountable too? Of late, one gets the sense that 'home advantage' is turning far too skewed. In India, pitches are so flat that no ODI total less than 350 is even worth defending. In Australia, South Africa and England too, pitches have gotten greener and trickier than before - although, admittedly, to a degree lesser than the skew observable in the subcontinent.

There seems no outright reason for the heavy lopsidedness of contests in world cricket these days. Some would even contest that it exists. But there's little doubt, however, that things have gotten terribly dreary and unexciting in the world of cricket.