Away bullies - players with a far superior away record

Be it the Ashes, India’s tour of the West Indies, or Pakistan’s tour of Sri Lanka - all recent Test series saw an away batter top the run-scoring charts. While the sample size is too small to jump to any conclusion, let’s look at some batters who bucked the trend of scoring heavily at home by being away bullies.

Note: Due to the lack of home/away data availability on older matches, we have considered matches played post-2000. Also, for better context, we looked at batters who have scored a minimum of 2000 runs in away venues.

Graeme Smith (South Africa)

The former South African skipper and, arguably, the rainbow nation’s best Test skipper was an effective batter too. The southpaw was prolific with the bat, scoring over 9000 runs at an average of over 48. 

England, in particular, bore the brunt of his away-scoring abilities. He ended up with 714 runs in his maiden tour of England. He scored two double centuries in the series, including a fantastic 259 at Lord’s - which still is the record for the highest score by an overseas batter at the historic venue. 

If that wasn’t enough, he performed an encore during his next tour of England. This time, he led the Proteas to a famous series win and scored two daddy hundreds in the process.

Ab de Villiers (South Africa)

If there’s one word that would best describe the Pretorian legend, it would be ‘freak’. As if having an enviable T20 record was not enough, he decided to dominate the red-ball arena as well. 

An average of 50.6 in a career spanning 13 years and nearly 200 innings is as good as it can get. And just like his maiden Test skipper, he also particularly liked English conditions. He ended up top-scoring for the Proteas on his maiden tour to England. 

But, more than his stroke-making, his ability to stay defiant made him a household name in Test circles. Be it Adelaide ‘12 or Delhi ‘15, de Villiers showed his defensive abilities by stretching the game as much as possible. The former resulted in a draw, while the latter was too steep for him to climb alone.

Sachin Tendulkar (India)

A listicle on Test records and no mention of the ‘Little Master’, aisa toh ho nahi sakta (that’s not possible).

One common feature among these three players has been their affinity for Englishmen. Like the South Africans above, he also averages over 50 against England. Where he separates himself from the rest of the pack is in how he fared in other top nations as well. He’s the only player on this list to average over 50 in Australia, England, and India. 

His highest score (193) against England came at Headingley in 2002. The innings also helped him surpass Don Bradman’s tally of 29 Test hundreds. His knock might have been overshadowed by the fact that there were three centurions in the innings (Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly being the others), but the innings was all class. 

But, his most famous overseas Test knock was possibly the 241 he registered in Sydney ‘03. With scores of 0, 1, 37, 0, and 44 in the tour’s five Test innings, the Aussies had had the better of him regularly. Having understood his flaws outside off-stump, he restrained himself and abandoned the cover drive to deny his opponents that option. 

“Things had gone wrong a couple of times with my shot selection, and I knew I had to cut out a few strokes,” Tendulkar recalled later. 

Stephen Fleming (New Zealand)

We have the former Kiwi skipper Stephen Fleming to round up this list. The stylish left-hander might be best known as the coach of Chennai Super Kings, but let’s not forget that he was a more than capable batter for New Zealand. 

His away record gets further highlighted by how average his home numbers are. He averaged only 33.9 at home despite spending over half his career batting in familiar conditions. 

A Test batting average of 65 in Asia shows how much he loved batting in the continent. His moment under the sun came in Colombo ‘03 when he stroked his way to a masterful 274 against the hosts. Under turning conditions at the P Sara Oval, Fleming put up a show no one saw coming. 

A knock studded with 28 boundaries and a solitary six, Fleming looked completely at ease while handling whatever Sri Lanka had to throw at him. An attack that included the likes of Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan could do very little to negate Fleming’s knock.