A soft corner for Adelaide and Sydney

Brian Lara averages 66.26 in Sydney and Adelaide, but only 23.16 in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth © Mid-day Enlarge

For an overseas batsman, runs scored in Australia often means more than runs scored anywhere else. Apart from the relatively bouncy pitches, the batsmen also have to overcome the challenges posed by the most potent bowling attack in world cricket, and one of the meanest fielding units around.

Even in Australia, though, some venues have been more hospitable to overseas batsmen than others. Adelaide, for instance, has almost always produced a flat pitch - thanks to Les Burdett, their curator - with little assistance to the bowlers. Sydney, meanwhile, has often helped spinners more than the fast bowlers. At both these venues, the bounce and seam movement has been less pronounced, allowing batsmen from outside Australia to feel more at home with conditions and get among the runs.

At the other three regular Test venues, though, the story has been entirely different. Brisbane has mostly helped the fast bowlers, and often hosts the first Test of a series, leaving overseas batsmen with little time to adjust to the Australian conditions. Melbourne has been quite bowler-friendly as well, while the trampoline-like bounce in Perth has often been far too much for the batsmen to get on top of. The best bet for most batsmen has been to make extra runs in Sydney and Adelaide, so that the overall numbers still look good after the damage from the other three venues.

The table below checks out the numbers for overseas top-order batsmen (Nos. 1-7) since 1990, and the difference in numbers between the two sets of numbers is stark: batsmen score 26% more runs per dismissal in Sydney and Adelaide than in the other three grounds.

The table below lists out the batsmen with the highest difference in averages between the two sets of venues (at least four innings at each set of venues). The two England captains lead the way: Paul Collingwood averages more than 90 in Adelaide and Sydney and less than 27 in the other three grounds, while Michael Vaughan isn't far behind. However, Vaughan and Sachin Tendulkar, the next batsman in the list, have done reasonably well in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth - the high difference in average is largely due to their exceptional records in Sydney and Adelaide.

That argument doesn't hold for Brian Lara, though. He has a superb record in Sydney and Adelaide, with five 50-plus scores - including two double-centuries - in 15 innings. His stats in the other three venues are dismal: in 18 innings there, he has been dismissed without scoring four times.

The difference is almost as much for two former opening batsmen. Michael Atherton averaged more than 50 when batting on the true pitches of Sydney and Adelaide, but it dropped to less than a third of that figure when the conditions got tougher - his highest from 18 innings in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth was 54. It was a similar struggle for Gary Kirsten, whose average dropped from 52.63 to 23.80.

Not too many batsmen fall into the next category, but there have been a few overseas players who have flourished in conditions that most have found too difficult to conquer. The list is headed by an unlikely candidate: Mark Ramprakash managed an average of just 36.50 in Adelaide and Sydney, but he was consistency personified in the three tougher venues, with four 40-plus scores in eight innings. Sourav Ganguly has often been pulled up for his problems against pace and bounce, but surprisingly, he has done much better in Brisbane and Melbourne than in Sydney and Adelaide.

Two of the most consistent batsmen across all venues in Australia have been Jacques Kallis and Kevin Pietersen. Pietersen scored runs at almost every venue on England's tour in 2006-07, but Kallis' achievement is even more creditable, since his runs have come over three different series: he averages almost 50 in Sydney and Adelaide, and only marginally lesser in the other three venues.