Cricket has long been the most popular sport in India—far surpassing any other in terms of fan following and national attention. Even the country’s official national sport, hockey, doesn’t come close. For many Indians, cricket isn’t just a game; it’s a passion, almost a religion.
India has consistently been one of the top-ranked teams in the world, admired and respected by cricket fans across the globe. On home soil, backed by a sea of supporters—often referred to as one billion strong—they’re nearly unbeatable.
But the story changes when they play away from home. India has often struggled to replicate its dominance abroad, giving rise to the phrase: Tigers at home, lambs abroad.
But is that criticism fair? And more importantly—is India the only team that struggles?
Let’s be honest—cricket isn’t like any other sport. In fact, it might just be the weirdest of them all. Where else can a few hours of unexpected rain completely flip the outcome of a match, often handing one team a massive (and sometimes unfair) advantage?
Cricket is deeply influenced by climate and conditions. Playing in different parts of the world means adjusting not just your strategy, but your entire game plan. Naturally, the home team has the edge—they understand their pitches, their weather, and they’ve built their squad around those strengths.
So, to single out India for struggling abroad is a bit unfair. All Asian teams have historically faced challenges in places like Australia and Europe, just as teams from those regions often find it tough to play in the subcontinent. The struggle away from home isn’t an Indian problem—it’s a cricket problem.
To test this intuition, I took a deep dive into the numbers and analyzed the winning ratios of the top 10 teams in the ICC rankings. Using a dataset of all One Day International (ODI) matches played between 1971 and 2017, I looked at each team’s overall win record.
Then, I broke down the data into two categories:
Matches played at home, and
Matches played abroad.
This separation allowed me to compare how each team performs in familiar conditions versus foreign ones—and see whether India truly stands out when it comes to struggling overseas.
The results were far from surprising. The data shows that India performs noticeably better on home soil, with a 60.68% win ratio at home compared to 50.6% abroad—but this pattern isn’t unique to India. In fact, almost every team in the top 10 shows a similar trend: they perform significantly better at home than away.
If anything, the data reveals that India’s performance abroad is actually better than that of most other top 10 teams. So, the label “Tigers at home, lambs abroad” could just as easily apply to many others—with one notable exception: Afghanistan.
At first glance, Afghanistan’s record might seem unusual—they’ve won over half their matches abroad but have a 0% win rate at home. But there’s a simple explanation: Afghanistan hasn’t hosted any ODI matches in their own country due to ongoing security concerns and the absence of international-standard facilities. With all their “home” matches played in neutral venues, that statistic quickly makes sense.
Even when I combined the data for all top 10 teams, the trend remained clear: playing at home offers a significant advantage. Across all matches analyzed, the visiting team won only 42% of the time.
In comparison, India’s win rate as a visiting team stands at 50.6%—a figure that’s well above the overall average. That makes India’s away performance not just respectable, but actually impressive when viewed in context.
Conclusion
Cricket is a tough sport—and playing overseas makes it even tougher. Every team struggles to some extent when away from home, and India is no exception. But to single them out for poor performances abroad ignores the broader reality of international cricket.
Home advantage is real, and every team benefits from it. When we look at the data, India’s overseas record is actually stronger than that of most other top teams.
So, the label Tigers at home, lambs abroad doesn’t quite fit. If anything, India has proven to be far more than just a home-track bully. You can find the notebook and dataset Here