India's dismal overseas Test record is threatening to hit Mahendra Singh Dhoni's run as captain but the man in the line of fire continues to harp on the "positives" even though his own assesment of the team's troubles runs longer than the gains he can list.
Team India finished their New Zealand tour without a single win. They lost the first Test in Auckland by 40 runs and then could only manage to draw the second Test in Wellington, despite being in a handsome position at the halfway point in the match.
Thus, they surrendered the Test series 0-1, and prior to this, lost the five-match ODI series 0-4.
It is a three-month long winless streak, stretching back to the tour of South Africa. There, Dhoni's team lost 0-2 in the ODIs and then 1-0 in the Test series. In fact, the last competitive match the Indian team won was in the last week of November in the third ODI against the West Indies at Kanpur, almost an age ago.
Furthermore, if Test matches played overseas are singled out, then their last win also came against the same opponents in the first Test at Kingston in the summer of 2011.
Since then, India have played 14 Test matches in West Indies, England, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand (in that order), and have won none of them. It includes the infamous 0-8 losing run as well as two recent losses in Africa and now in New Zealand, while four matches were drawn.
All in all, this makes Dhoni the Indian captain with the worst Test losses' record overseas -- 11 defeats in 23 matches leading the team away from home.
When this question was put to him after India lost the Test series to New Zealand on Tuesday, he replied, "I am someone who speaks more about the process rather than thinking about the results. If you compare those two series (8-0) with the last couple we have played, there is plenty of improvement. That's what it's all about."
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