Which team is the best of them all away from home?

In February I analysed the performance of teams on their home patch. This is a companion piece that evaluates how teams competed away.Irrespective of the minor differences between the SCG and the MCG, or Lord's and The Oval, matches at home can be considered similar. Home is home - a place of comfort, support, familiar conditions and solid performances.Playing away is a different ball game. "Home" is one country. "Away" is one of a dozen (considering, for the purposes of this article, the West Indies as one country).

Playing away means negotiating a cold Auckland, a hot Colombo, and a rainy Manchester. It involves tackling square turners, seamers' paradises, trampoline pitches and flat strips. There are challenges related to food, accommodation and local culture. And finally, let us face it: during the first 100 years or so, travelling teams had home umpires to contend with.For the first part of this analysis, which covers all of Test history, I have classified the away matches as Asia (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) and non-Asia (the rest). While there isn't complete uniformity of conditions within these groups, there is some natural logic in clustering these countries together. At any rate, I am merely showing the region where the matches were played and letting the readers derive their own insights. In the latter part of the analysis, for the period 2000 to 2020, the groupings are different.

I will look at it more in terms of how it has performed across periods. A team's mindset can change completely across periods. In the latter part of the article, I will look across teams. In that section I will do two levels of analyses: one for the entire 143 years of Test history and the other for the past 20 years. Test matches and series are covered separately.The Result Index (RI), is normally based on a simple 2-1-0 (Win-Draw-Loss) system. However, I feel that that a blanket 50% points for draws is inaccurate. Instead, I will use a more nuanced allocation, as follows:Win: 3.0 points
Tie: 2.0 points
Draw1: 1.5 points (two innings completed)
Draw2: 1.0 points (two innings not completed)
Loss: 0.0 points
The RI formula is: RI = 100.0 * (3.0Wins + 2.0Ties + 1.5Draw1s + 1.0Draw2s) / (3.0*Matches)Team summaries
The team results below are divided into periods. Only the 2000-20 period is common to all teams. The earlier periods are determined based on every country's historical needs. There are no definite rules for these cut-offs.Wins and ties are shown in shades of red, draws in grey, and losses in black. I have highlighted the primary streaks - wins or losses or draws - with black lines above and below the squares. I have underlined the secondary streaks - no wins or no losses or no draws - in red. In order not to clutter up the graphs, when there are over two streaks of equal length, only one streak is highlighted. All away Tests played in Asia are identified with a white circle at the centre.The analysis is current up to the second Test between New Zealand and India in Christchurch earlier this year. Let us move on to the graphs, starting with Australia.