5 reasons for India's dire overseas record in recent times

#3 Poor bench strength

Zaheer Khan's untimely injury hampered India's hopes in the 2011 England tour

India are never known to boast a large pool of quality fast bowlers. It was always a case of one or two quality pacers capable of troubling the opposition.

What went wrong for India was those injuries to major pacers at crucial junctures. Zaheer Khan got injured on the first day of the 2011 England tour and was replaced by a rusty RP Singh. Ishant Sharma, after his match-winning 7/74 at Lords, got injured and was replaced by a wayward Varun Aaron.

These are a couple of examples where injuries to one of the lead bowlers had a huge negative impact on the whole team. Opposition made merry and India suffered heavy defeats.

This situation has changed to a great extent at present. The five pacers in the squad for South Africa and England series were all capable of walking into the starting XI. So injury to a major bowler won't affect the team in Australia as much as it did before.