Is the Virat Kohli-bunch the best touring Indian team?

"The endeavour of this team is to travel well, compete and win. If you look at the last three years, we have won nine matches overseas and three series (two in Sri Lanka & one in West Indies), I can't see any other Indian team in the last 15-20 years that has had the same run in such a short time, and you have had some great players playing in those series" - These were the words of head coach Ravi Shastri after India lost the series in England in 2018 after the fourth Test in Southampton.

Unlike the Indian teams of the past, Virat Kohli's side was at the top of the ICC rankings at the start of the year (in 2018) before they were to tour outside Asia - having lost just two Tests in the past three years. The team had the opportunity to etch their name in history as the greatest Indian team ever had they continued the dream run overseas - the litmus test for teams from the sub-continent. With India completing the current cycle after the tour to New Zealand, it's a good time to analyse and see how near, or far, was Shastri from the truth.

For the purpose of this article, India's overseas tours to South Africa, England, New Zealand, and Australia - abbreviated as SENA henceforth - are clubbed together into various cycles, each typically ranging for two years - give or take a few months at either end. West Indies have been mostly underwhelming in the period since the 1990s and have been excluded for this analysis. Two more caveats to the analysis - the one-off Test in