Importance of a Drawn Test

Last year, on the eve of India's series against England, I wrote a post titled Q & A, which highlighted the importance of not losing the opening test of an away tour. The gist of the post was:

a) India has never ever managed to win a series abroad, after losing the opening test and b) Has managed to draw the scores level on only two occasions after losing the series opener.

(Fortunately MS Dhoni, Steve Bucknor and weather gods collaborated to save the opening test at Lords for India, and true to these statistics, India went on to win the series)

I wanted to check the corresponding figures for home series, but kept postponing it for one reason or the other. What drove me to revisit this issue again was the surprisingly strong tirade against the Indian team in general, and Anil Kumble in particular, after they drew the Bangalore test. There were very few words of appreciation on how the batsmen hung on to a comfortable draw on a difficult fifth day pitch.

So consider this:

Up until the current one against Australia, India has played 59 test series in last 75 years.

Of these, India has won 28, lost 15, and drew 16.

In 59 series played so far, India has lost the opening test 16 times, losing 11 of those series. Of the remaining five times when the team lost the first test, it managed to comeback and level the series thrice (1964/65 against Australia, 1987/88 against West Indies and 1998/99 against Pakistan) and also win it twice (1972/73 against England and the 200/01 'VVS special' against Australia)

As for the wins in the opening test, India has won the opener in 20 series so far. 17 of these have ended in series victories for them. Twice have the opponents come back to level the series (New Zealand in 1969/70 and West Indies in 1994/95). The only time India has lost a series after winning the opening test was in 1984/85, when Gavaskar and Kapil's famous spat clearly overshadowed even Azhar's dream debut.

There have been 23 series in which the opening test has ended without a result (including the 1986/87 tied test versus Australia). India has won 9 out of these series and drew 11.

Only thrice has India lost the series after managing to draw the opening test - twice against West Indies (1948/49 & 1958/59) and once against Pakistan (1987), which means that India's chances of winning or leveling the series shoots dramatically after drawing the opening test.
Bangalore test was indeed tricky for India. I have mentioned in my previous post that Indians had not won a test here in last 13 years. Moreover a defeat in first test would have most certainly meant curtains for the entire series. The Bangalore test has provided team India a strong foothold from where they can possibly dictate this series.
I, for one, would never underestimate the importance of a drawn test, especially the opening one!