From electrifying to soporific

There used to be a time when cricket in the Caribbean meant plenty of action: the bowling was fast, the pitches bouncy, and the batsmen - those who were good enough - had the opportunity to score their runs quickly, which meant plenty of entertainment for the crowds.

All this, though, was a couple of decades back, when West Indies were a powerhouse in world cricket. The decline in the quality of West Indian cricket has coincided with a significant drop in the entertainment value of cricket in the region. The pitches have lost their sheen, with the one in Kingston being the prime example - a surface that was a favourite for fast bowlers has lost most of its zip and bounce. That's been the story at all Caribbean venues; couple that with sluggish outfields, and the nature of cricket there has changed completely, from the electrifying to the turgid and attritional. The first day of the Test against England followed that script too, with 236 runs scored in 88 overs - a run rate of 2.68. So unresponsive was the pitch to fast bowling that spinners bowled 51 overs on the opening day, a statistic that would have been unheard of 20 years ago.

While Test cricket in most parts of the world has increased in entertainment value in the last decade, in the West Indies the quality of the game has clearly regressed. Since 2000, West Indies is the only region where the run-rate has been less than three runs per over. England, Australia and South Africa lead the way in terms of scoring-rate, and Australia and South Africa are also the countries in which draws are the least common: around one in seven games are drawn there. In the West Indies, on the other hand, one out of every 2.75 matches is drawn; the only country where the stalemate is more prevalent is India.

Contrast the numbers above with the next table, which shows the stats in each country in the 1980s. During that decade - a period when slow batting and an abundance of draws was the norm - the West Indies was the only region when the scoring-rate was more than three runs per over. The draw percentage, though a significant number by today's standards, was the lowest among all countries. In fact, the number is almost exactly the same for West Indies now as it was then; in many of the other countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan, it has decreased by at least 50%. During a three-year period from April 1985 to April 1988, eight successive Tests all produced decisive results, with the home team winning seven of them; the longest stretch of successive results in the 2000s is only four. (Click here for the results list in the West Indies in the 1980s, and here for the corresponding results in the 2000s.)

Overseas teams have done slightly better than the home team in terms of runs per wicket in the West Indies, but they've found it more difficult to come to terms with the slow nature of the wickets, scoring at 2.94 runs per over, compared to 3.02 for West Indies.

Who are the overseas batsmen who have struggled the most - in terms of their scoring-rates - to come to grips with conditions in the West Indies? It turns out that the table is dominated by South Africans - there are six of them in the list below. On their 2000-01 tour, many of them were among the runs, but at pedestrian scoring-rates. The story was similar during the 2004-05 tour, when six batsmen averaged more than 50, but at a strike-rate of around 50 or less.

Herschelle Gibbs' case is the most striking - he may have hit six sixes in an over in an ODI in the West Indies, but in Tests it's a different story. His strike-rate in countries other than the West Indies since 2000 is more than 55, but in the Caribbean it's only 34.41, despite the fact that his average there is a healthy 41.64. Mohammad Yousuf's silken strokeplay has been similarly stifled by the pitches there, and the story is similar for Graeme Smith, Sourav Ganguly and Jacques Kallis, among others.

Most West Indian batsmen haven't struggled as much, which is as you'd expect, considering they're playing on home turf. The strike difference is highest for their current captain, who scores more than 62 runs per 100 balls overseas but only 51.96 at home.

There are some others, though, who haven't found the West Indian pitches quite as difficult to score on. The list is headed by Virender Sehwag, for whom surfaces and conditions matter not a jot - his seven innings in the West Indies yielded runs at a strike-rate of 86.44. This table is dominated by Australians, five of whom are in the top six. Adam Gilchrist didn't find the slow pitches a hindrance either, scoring at a rate of 81.03.