I'll be amazed if we win an away series against anybody bar the minor nations. On the other hand, I'll be amazed if we ever lose a home series.
Problem you have is, and it's not just limited to us, all the major cricketing nations tend to have their own area of expertise.
Australia = pacey, bouncy wickets. They have the bowlers to exploit this and their batsmen are used to it. Give them a swinging ball under cloud cover and Steve Smith looks about as good as I am. And I'm shit.
India/Sri Lanka/Pakistan = Dusty, dry, spinners paradises. I think I read somewhere that India haven't won an away series in about 10 years, yet rarely lose at home. I wonder why...
England = Green, wobbly seamers. Look at Anderson/Broad/Woakes - up there with the best swing bowlers in the world. Our batsmen can play anything seaming off a length at 80-85mph, but shove it up their noses at 90+ and they're shitting themselves. To be fair, I would too!
South Africa = Same as Australia but their main issue is that they don't pick the best 11 players. Granted, neither do we, but their quota system royally screws them over.
West Indies = When they can get their main men to play Test Cricket, they have a shot. Unfortunately, just not good enough but their pitches are very much like Australia.
New Zealand = NZ are the only conundrum. On their day they look brilliant in most places (except the sub-continent), but they've been off the boil for so long now...
We'll always win at home because we're the only nation that plays on green seamers so naturally all the test pitches are like that. I know the CC has tried to fiddle with the rules to make spinners but that isn't working. There's no point trying to make roads or hard, pacey wickets because if you do, it pisses down and all the work is ruined. You want to make more fast bowlers, preferably ones that can swing it? The ECB and Counties need to accept two things:
1. Our counties play FAR too much cricket a season.
2. Accept that young pacemen growing up are going to concede runs when they get it wrong. Deal with it. Don't do what they did to Steve Finn and ruin his action because his economy rate was too high.
If I'm honest, I think we have too many counties. The Aussies and Kiwis have 6 teams. The South Africans have 6 franchises made up of 13 teams. When the 13 teams play separately, their FC games are 3 days long. End of. The Indians have 28 teams but play a maximum of 9 first class matches a year. We, on the other hand, play 14 FC games across 18 teams. That's a ridiculous amount, plus OD and T20 on top. It's too much.
South Africa tend to win more key test matches/ series overseas than most though?
They've won recent series in NZ, Australia and Sri Lanka where conditions haven't necessarily been familiar.
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