3 striking similarities between India's 2-0 series defeats to New Zealand in 2002 and 2020

.After winning their first seven matches in the 2019-21 ICC Test Championship - which involved a 2-0 series win in the West Indies, a 3-0 home win over South Africa, and a 2-0 home win over Bangladesh - Team India faltered in their fourth series.

Traditionally, India have struggled to win matches in New Zealand, sometimes due to the exaggerated swing on green tops, and at other times due to demons in the heads rather than in the pitches. Both of those things proved to be true in some measure on the 2020 tour.

Embarking on their 10th Test series in the picturesque country since a 3-1 win on their first tour in 1967-68 (where the visitors won matches in Dunedin, Christchurch and Auckland while losing the third test in Wellington), India fell to defeats in the matches in Wellington and Christchurch. That marked the sixth time India lost a Test series in New Zealand, with two series drawn and two won (1967-68 and 2008-09).

On that note, let us have a look at three amazing similarities between India's 2-0 series defeats in New Zealand in 2002-03 and 2019-20:

#1 India lost the toss and batted first in all 4 matches

Team India during the second test in Christchurch in 2020.

.During the 2002-03 tour, India batted first after losing the toss in the first match in Wellington, and were bowled out for a sub-200 total (161).

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18 years later, in the first Test of the 2019-20 tour in Wellington, the visitors were skittled out for 165 after losing the toss. India ended up losing both matches by 10 wickets.

In the second Test of the two series, India again lost the toss on each occasion. They slumped to four- and seven-wicket defeats respectively to lose each series by the identical margin of 2-0.

#2 No player from either side scored a century in either series

Kane Williamson

Just like it was in the 2002-03 series, no player from either side scored a century in the 2019-20 series. Incidentally, the top scorers in both series came from New Zealand, in the first innings of the first Test.

Mark Richardson's 89 for the Kiwis in the first Test was the highest individual score in the 2002-03 series. Meanwhile captain Kane Williamson's 89 in the first Test of the 2019-20 series was also the top score for either team in their latest series on New Zealand soil.

In each of the 60 Test series played by India between these two tours of New Zealand, at least one Indian player scored a century.

#3 Both Indian captains in the two series suffered their first series whitewash

Sourav Ganguly (left) and Virat Kohli are two of India's most successful captains

.Sourav Ganguly (21) and Virat Kohli (33) are two of the most successful Test captains in the history of Indian cricket. However, both men suffered their first series whitewash on their tours of New Zealand - Ganguly in 2002-03 and Kohli in 2019-20.

If that was not enough, both players also had forgettable outings with the bat in the two series. Kohli's return of 3, 14, 2, and 19 at an average of 9.5 was only marginally better than that of Ganguly's run of 5, 5, 17, and 2 in the 2002-03 series.