For just the fifth time in their history India passed 500 in the first innings of an overseas Test. That statistic appears to back up the assertion that India's batsmen are paper tigers, brilliant on paper but useless overseas. It would also explain why India win so little away from home. And yet, the real reason for India's pathetic record on their travels lies elsewhere. And this generation of Indian batsmen is not as bad as the cliché makes them out to be. Perusing a list – drawn up by the Wisden Wizard – of Indian batsmen who have played at least ten Tests outside the subcontinent, one makes the startling observation that four of India's best six batsmen, in terms of averages, are in this Indian eleven: Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly. Furthermore, among Indian batsmen who have played five Tests or more in England, Dravid, Tendulkar and Ganguly top the averages – all of them at over 70 runs per innings. No surprise then that this line-up has followed up their 424 on a fifth-day uneven pitch at Trent Bridge with an almost-600 innings here at Leeds. The reason India don't win overseas and are unlikely to win this game lies elsewhere.

In India's 70-year history of Test cricket, among bowlers with at least 20 wickets overseas, only three have averaged less than 30. No Indian bowlers in the last four decades have managed that most basic statistic of quality. In this case, figures speak louder than words. India's bowlers don't have it in them to take 20 wickets overseas, no matter how good a platform India's batsmen give them.

And they won't get many platforms better than this. The pitch, while it seemed to contain fewer devils on the second day than on the first, offers plenty of help for bowlers who have the capacity to exploit it, and a follow-on target of almost 400 – if India don't continue batting tomorrow – is a daunting one.

Tendulkar's 30th century was a poised effort, and put the lie to the assertion that he cracks at the crunch. This may have been no desperate fourth-innings fight against the odds, but his dismissal, on a pitch like this, could have opened the floodgates for India, and the series could have slipped away. Having said that though, it was strange how he continued in his measured approach even as the third session began, with India safe and the time to accelerate surely to hand. The bowling was mediocre and the Tendulkar of 10 years ago would have torn it apart. That he still has the capacity to do so, if not the will, was evident in the last few overs of the day when the Indians, offered the light, refused and decided to smack the ball around.

Ganguly played wonderfully in that stretch of time. Accused by many of being selfish, and obsessive about personal landmarks, he selflessly gave the bowlers a charge with his hundred just a few runs away. Nasser Hussain, looking miffed at being doled out the very medicine England dished out to Pakistan a couple of seasons ago, instructed his bowlers to bounce the Indians in low visibility, and Tendulkar and Ganguly responded superbly. They were dancing in the dark, in the prayer their bowlers would not trip up in the three crucial days to come.

Amit Varma is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India.

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