India's favourite opponents, and a spot on openers

A glimmer of hope for India
Since the start of this season, little has gone right for India, an outfit that was supposed to be a world-beating one. Thumpings by Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup, followed by more defeats to Pakistan and England, have left the Indian team reeling on the eve of one of their biggest challenges. The batsmen have been woefully out of touch, and their performance in the first innings against India A hardly inspired confidence either. But if they're looking for morale-boosters, the Indian batting line-up needs to look no further than their records in their last couple of series against Australia: Rahul Dravid averages 87 against them over that period (957 runs from 11 completed innings), VVS Laxman 83.08 (997 from 12), and Sachin Tendulkar 62.45 (687 from 11).

Shane Warne has gone on record as stating that he would be targetting Dravid, and while he is the one Indian batsman Warne has had success against, Dravid did handle him quite comfortably in the last two Tests of the 2000-01 series, scoring 76 and being dismissed just once. In fact, Warne's combined stats against India's awesome foursome - Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly - in those two matches read: 71.1 overs, 300 runs, two wickets - that's 213 balls and 150 runs per wicket. Depressing if you're Warne or an Australian supporter, outstanding stuff in you're in the Indian camp.

The only front-line Australian bowler who played in both the last two Test series between the sides is Jason Gillespie, whose stats against the Indian top order make for fascinating reading. As the table below shows, Gillespie has achieved spectacular success against Tendulkar and Dravid, but he has come a distant second-best against Laxman.

When well begun isn't half done
What's the correlation between a substantial opening partnership and the chances of winning a Test against Australia? Very high, you'd think. After all, that's the best way to put pressure on any opposition - get off to a solid start so the middle order can cash in and get a huge total. Well, against Australia, though, the opening stand in the first innings seems to have little impact on the outcome of the match - in Tests since 2000, the difference in partnerships between winning and losing causes is only five. In fact, there have been four instances of teams going on to lose the match despite the openers putting together a century stand.

Most recently, the Sri Lankans were on the receiving end, at the SSC in Colombo earlier this year, while India (Melbourne, 2003-04) and West Indies (Bridgetown, 2003 and Sydney, 2000-01) have been the other teams to lose despite getting the ideal launching pad. On two of those occasions - at Melbourne and Sydney - the opposition batted first, got into seemingly impregnable positions, and then watched Australia slowly claw back, even the game, and then win it. If you wanted proof about the resilience of the Australians, the scorecards from these matches should do the job.

Funnily enough, opening partnerships play more of a role in the second innings - when teams win against Australia, their openers put together 50; when they lose, that figure drops to less than 23.

Also, a team's chances pulling off a win improve enormously if they manage to restrict Australia's opening pair in their first innings. When Australia win, their openers average 58, which is 23 more than what they score in losing causes. And they're so far ahead of the game by the halfway mark, that despite their opening stand dropping off significantly in the second innings, they still end up winning games.