"Wait till you come to India," was the best Ishant Sharma and Virat Kohli could come up with as David Warner disembowelled the touring bowling attack on day one of the third Test in Perth. In the sledging stakes it lacked the sophistication of Paul Keating, the venom of Malcolm Tucker or the humour of Merv Hughes. It did however reveal Indian cricket's warped sense of perspective.

What Kohli and Sharma were trying to say was, "when you play us in conditions that we're comfortable with, we might be bothered to give you a game;" an attitude, frankly, that stinks.

This myopic arrogance was compounded after the Test concluded, with the BCCI President, N Srinivasan, commenting: "Next New Zealand is coming to India and it will be followed by England and Australia. We will beat these three teams on our own soil. They cannot beat us here and we will feel very happy."

Anybody know the Hindi translation for chutzpah?

India was the number one ranked side in Test cricket as recently as July 2011. It began its short reign at the top in December 2009 and since being deposed by England has consistently ranked second.

Since ascending to number one status, India has played 28 Tests, winning 12 and losing 10. Just five of those 12 victories have occurred outside India, a figure distended by two gimmes in Bangladesh. In other words, India has won just three times outside India (in Durban, Kingston and Colombo) in 16 attempts whilst supposedly being the best, or close to the best team in world cricket.

During this time India has been whitewashed in England and will be whitewashed again in Australia. It is now nine Tests since India last won overseas, accounting for matches in Australia, England and West Indies.

In that same period India has lost just once at home in ten Tests, defeating South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and West Indies.

This is an uncomfortable discrepancy.

India's recent non-performances have made a mockery of the ICC Rankings system, reduced a de-facto Test world championship to a walkover and guaranteed each Test on this miserable tour of Australia has ended at least one full day ahead of schedule.

If I'm being harsh it is because in consecutive tours the Indian players have given the distinct impression that they could not have cared less. Batsmen have lacked aptitude, bowlers have lacked patience and fielders have lacked concentration. But hey, just watch them turn it on for the home faithful...

The textbook front-foot defence is to point out the unsurmountable differences between Indian conditions and those found in England and Australia. The extra bounce, the swing, the lack of help for spinners and the hostile crowds make it near impossible for India to adapt successfully - or so the story goes.

That argument falls down for me this past year for two reasons. Firstly, India's batting order is one of the most experienced ever assembled in Test cricket. With the exception of Virat Kohli, the rest of India's top seven has extensive playing experience in a range of conditions. The second is the conditions in England and Australia in particular should aid India's seam bowlers. With one or two notable exceptions, India's bowlers have looked as impotent as its batsmen.

India's rise has been led by an intimidating batting order containing Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman.

Sehwag, disinterested and artless in this current series, averages just 33 away from India in the last two years. At home, he averages an impressive 65. In the same period, Rahul Dravid averages a moderate 41 overseas, 63 in India. The most extreme example is VVS Laxman. Once the scourge of Australia, the wristy middle-order veteran averages an astonishing 91 in India over the last two years. On the road, that plummets to just 37. Only The Little Master passes passport control with any credit. He averages above 60 home and away.

The status of that group of legends makes them obvious targets but the bowlers should not be without criticism either.

On the current tour only Umesh Yadav (32.7) and Zaheer Khan (28.7) have decent figures, though Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle and the composite third seamer of James Pattinson, Ryan Harris and Mitchell Starc have outperformed them both. The figures beyond Yadav are gruesome. Ishant Sharma, finds the gall to sledge despite averaging 81, R Vinay Kumar took 1/73 on debut, while Ravichandran Ashwin has unimpressed with four wickets in 95 overs.

Against an Australian line-up recently sliced and diced by unheralded Kiwis this Indian attack has failed to summon anything like the same ghouls supposedly haunting its veteran batsmen.

Not that any of this now matters for a couple of years. Thanks to the ICC's Future Tours Programme (beautifully described recently by The Age's Chloe Saltau as resembling a game of Tetris) India is scheduled to play just one Test series overseas between now and November 2013 - and that's the short hop to Sri Lanka. Plenty of time to hoodwink the rest of the world into believing the hype that will no doubt be caused by diminutive batsmen filling their boots on familiar roads.

Test cricket globally is not in rude enough health to be nourished by such a lack of sustenance.

To prevent such imbalances of performance the cricket community needs to establish greater incentives for away performances. For example, the ICC rankings, both for teams and individuals should be weighted more heavily in the favour of travellers. The financial stakes should also be raised for touring sides to guarantee series like those recently are not repeated.

Punishment, if such a word is appropriate, will always rest on home boards in situations such as this. But how much revenue will Cricket Australia have lost already this summer, simply because India has not put in a decent shift? (I am aware of the irony of how much Australia relies on India financially for this to be a moot point - as evidenced by the interminable ODIs to follow the Test series - but the reasoning stands.)

Clearly there are many obstacles to achieving success in unfamiliar territories, not least the lack of preparation time the international calendar, bloated with ODI's, allows. Sachin and others snuck in a few days of net practice at the MCG in advance of the two risible practice matches (that did not even attain first class status) but that has clearly been shown to be insufficient.

England proved last summer that beating Australia under the Southern Cross can be done. They planned methodically, arrived early, practiced hard and committed to the task.

Amidst the various calls for cricket to reorder itself, front and centre has to be the preservation of Test matches as the game's gold standard. That means guaranteeing their intensity and quality by maintaining the desire of combatants and fans to produce the fiercest contest in the sport.

India has short-changed Australia this summer. It must not be allowed to happen again.