Lions at home, lambs abroad

When India dominated all opponents at home, the Indian press proclaimed them as the best Indian ODI team of all time. The ICC ODI rankings even recognised their rise by having them at number 3 in the world rankings. Now, after four consecutive losses at the hands of the number 8 team in the world, the West Indies, the murmurs from India have stopped, and India has fallen to number 5 in the world rankings.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, whose performances were so vital in India's success at home, predictably failed once he left the flat tracks and the small grounds of the subcontinent. With his failures, the stability in the middle order was compromised, as was India's ability to set challenging totals and chase down moderate scores.

Rahul Dravid, who was brilliant in the first ODI with 105, could only muster a further 44 runs in his next four innings.

Irfan Pathan, such a consistent bowler in the subcontinent, had a very poor series which hindered India as he was the man responsible for taking bags of early wickets. India's best fast bowler was the unlikely Ajit Agarkar, who bowled first change. India's spin bowlers slowed the flow of runs for the most part, but did not take many wickets on these unfamiliar grounds.

Put simply, India still under perform away from home, with the team's core players the biggest culprits. With a very important Test series coming up, they'd want to fix this problem as soon as possible.