The Transoceanic Performer- Guts, Grits and much more.

You may know him as the son of India's first Test centurion and as a part of India's most prolific cricketing family. You may know him as one of the only 3 players who won the Man of the Match award in both the Semi-final and Final of a World Cup. You may know him as the bowler who trapped Holding LBW as the last wicket in the 83' Final. You may know him as the former chief selector. You may know him as the dependable no. 3 and one of the best in tackling fast bowling. Yes, he is Mohinder Amarnath!

In this article, however, we are going to shed some light on his performance in a way Tests, which is very less talked about in the discussions of the best and is surprisingly better than his home performance!!

Performances by batsmen away from home in Amarnath's career span are shown in the above graphic. Amarnath scored 3008 runs at an average of 51.6 away from home. He stands in the 7th position in runs scored and has the 4th highest average after Border, Chappell and Gavaskar.

The above graphic shows his average in different countries. He averages 50+ in 4 countries (West Indies, Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka). Let's overview his performance in each country-

West Indies

He scored 877 runs in 16 innings, averaging almost 55. In 1976, he hit a nonchalant 85 in the historic 400 chases at Port of Spain. This was followed by a fearless 60 against the bodyline bowling by Holding and Daniel at Jamaica. He was injured multiple times during that innings as India declared the innings on 97 amidst the bloodbath.

His next notable performance in the Caribbean Islands came in 1983. Against the fearsome quarter of Holding, Marshall, Garner and Roberts, he had astonishing scores of 58, 117, 90, 81, 54, 116. These scores are enough to indicate the mettle he had.

Australia

His first tour Down Under came in 1977, when he was the third-highest run-getter after Gavaskar and Viswanath, which included brilliant scores of 90 and 100 on the pacy Perth track against a top-class bowling attack led by Jeff Thomson. He also scored a valiant 86 in Adelaide in a losing cause.

On his next tour in 1985, he scored 223 runs, at an average of 74. This included brilliant marathon innings of 138 in Sydney.

Pakistan

On his first and second tour to the neighbours, he had pretty average numbers. He managed to score just 178 runs in 1975 and 98 runs in 1975.

But then in 1982, he had his second-best away performance when he scored a total of 584 runs at an average of 73. He managed to score a total of 3 centuries, along with 3 half-centuries against the fancied Pakistan attack of Imran Khan, Sarfraz Nawaz and Abdul Qadir.

Sri Lanka

On his only tour to the Island neighbours, he had scores of 60, 10, 30 and 116. Sri Lanka won their first-ever Test series. But Amarnath scored some runs while others disappointed.

New Zealand 

In 1975, he travelled to New Zealand on his first-ever away tour. He had scores of 64, 45, 30, 26 and 13 totalling up to 178 runs at an average of 35.6.

England

On his first tour to England in 1978, he had a hard time scoring as he managed only 41 runs in 3 innings. 

In 1986, he however came back with a much-improved performance. He had a significant role in winning the Test in Lord's under Kapil's captaincy. Scoring 69(241), he had crucial partnerships of 59 and 71 with Gavaskar and Vengsarkar respectively, which helped India to amass 341 runs in their first innings. Brilliant bowling performance by Chetan Sharma, Kapil Dev and Roger Binny ensured that we won our first-ever Test match in the "Home of Cricket".

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Sir Viv Richards once said that, "I haven't seen someone play the Windies pace attack, better than Mohinder." Although, he had marvellous scores outside India, but had a number of failures batting at home which brought his average down. In 1984 IND vs WI series, he managed to score just 1 run in 5 innings. They say that the Windies bowlers were very furious because of his performance in WC knockouts. "He stole their world cup." 

Sachin, Gavaskar, Dravid, Azhar and Kohli are the names which come in our mind in discussing the overseas stars. But one name remains unnoticed among these greats... The name of Mohinder Amarnath.