England's 3-3 draw in India has been widely seen as a triumph for an unfancied team, and one of the key factors was their ability to restrict India's batsmen to double figures. Both sides had seven individual scores of 50 or more, but whereas England converted two into centuries, India managed none. This was crucial to England not so much in a positive sense - Marcus Trescothick's hundred came in defeat - but in a negative one, as India's big guns, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, are the most prolific one-day centurions of modern times. The last time they both failed to reach three figures in a one-day series in India was against Sri Lanka in 1997-98 - when there were only three matches, and one of those was abandoned. This time, Tendulkar made 62 at Chennai - when his dismissal sparked a collapse from which India almost lost - while Ganguly made 74 and 80 at Delhi and Bombay, both matches which India did lose. His dismissal was the turning point of each game, and had he reached three figures either time India would surely have won.

Since January 1, 1998, England have managed nine centuries in one-day internationals. In the same period, Tendulkar and Ganguly have scored exactly four times as many. To some extent, this can be explained by the fact that England seldom put on their pyjamas - 74 matches to India's 147 in that period - but that only accounts for half the difference. As a team, England have managed a century every eight matches, a figure that Ganguly can match on his own - and Tendulkar (one in six) can better. Compare this with England's big guns: Marcus Trescothick (one in 16) and Nick Knight (one in 28).

In this period, Tendulkar has made 19 hundreds and Ganguly 17. The next-best in the world is Jacques Kallis, with just eight. And it's not just the volume of hundreds that matters, but their size: since 1998 Ganguly's average hundred is 128, Tendulkar's 122. In the same period England's is 115. Indeed 11 of Ganguly and Tendulkar's 36 hundreds have totalled 140 or more, a score that grants virtual immunity from defeat: in the 1803-match history of ODIs, only six such scores have been made in a losing cause - two of them by Tendulkar.

In the last four years, exactly 75% of Indian one-day hundreds have come in victory (39 out of 52). In India, the figure is 83% (15 of 18). For Tendulkar and Ganguly in India, the rate is as high as 90% (9 in 10). Contrast this with England, for whom only 44% of hundreds (4 out of 9) have come in a winning cause. It seems Trescothick is not the only Englishman whose personal success acts as a near-guarantee of collective failure.

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