KKR, DC, now MI: In IPL’s home-away format, are local pitch makers offering host teams enough home advantage?

The other night, with Sunrisers Hyderabad nearing another win away from home, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar pondered on the comms if merrier days were ahead for the team in their second half of the season. This, based on the fact that SRH are to play five of their seven remaining league games at their home ground. “Always good to play at home. You are more familiar with the conditions. You can ask the groundsman to make a pitch that suits you. SRH, if they score 250 plus totals, they are going to win,” Gavaskar said.

But does IPL offer teams that home advantage? “The franchise has no say regarding the wicket. It’s a clear instruction given to us by the BCCI,” Sujan Mukherjee, pitch curator at Eden Gardens tells The Indian Express.

Mukherjee’s stance on the matter had come to light last year after Nitish Rana had lambasted the Eden surface by suggesting that every team in IPL enjoys home conditions ‘except KKR’. Rana isn’t the only one. “To me, it doesn’t matter if they are happy, not happy or very happy. IPL is not played on home advantage, and the captain may say anything he wants,” Mukherjee had said in response to the-then KKR skipper. “Does IPL have a clause where it is written that pitches have to be produced according to the wishes of the IPL franchise?”

Since then, multiple other teams have critiqued or expressed bemusement with regards to their home surface. MI captain Hardik Pandya for instance, had said after his side’s first game at the Wankhede Stadium, “The pitch was not what we expected.”

Having worked with the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) for almost 40 years, Mukherjee states that the wickets have been manufactured in accordance with the BCCI and not respective franchises since the advent of the IPL.

“There has been no influence from the franchise on the pitch since the very first edition of the IPL. The only thing they have a discussion with us about is when they’re going to practice on the ground. Any captain, coach can come and see the wicket under our supervision, that is no problem,” he says.

It was a contrastingly grassier Kotla strip on offer in the first game of IPL 2024 in Delhi. (PTI)

KKR however, aren’t the only franchise to abide by the aforementioned thumb rule. Delhi Capitals have the worst home record of all the existing franchises. Ahead of their first IPL 2024 game in Delhi last night, veteran pacer Ishant Sharma had expressed an air of uncertainty around the pitch. “We’ll have to look at the pitch here and then adapt to the conditions.”

A Delhi and District’s Cricket Association (DDCA) official explains the reasoning behind it. “Our parent body is the BCCI. We are their curators. Hume aur kisi se kya lena dena. We can’t go beyond the BCCI and make a pitch ourselves or on the franchise’s directives.”

What/who inspires changes?

Last year, the Kotla strip had come under fire after the-then DC assistant coach Shane Watson had scrutinized it for lack of grass. He’d rue, “Next season, hopefully the conditions are going to be more suitable to the make-up of our team. And there’ll be more true batting surfaces.”

At the time, the rebuttal offered by the home association was, “the wicket was tougher in the 2019 season. If you look at the average scores from that year, they were somewhere around 135-140.”

It couldn’t be a mere coincidence that the first game at the Arun Jaitley Stadium this season racked up 465 runs and had contrastingly more grass on offer. So what changed this year? “(Last year) The absence of grass was owing to excessive heat during the summer.” It is likely to hold out in better shape this year with DC scheduled to play fewer games in the sweltering national capital.

Was the decision to add more green in any ways influenced by the home franchise’s displeasure from last season? “No, we are neutral. The changes that happen depend on the results that are coming on these surfaces. Weather is different across multiple venues, so that also plays a part,” the DDCA official responds.

Mukherjee adds that more than the franchise, it is the fans and spectators, who are taken into consideration while curating a pitch. “When the T20 culture came to India with the IPL, at that time the talk was that it should be played on a good wicket. Ultimately, it’s for the fans. The consensus was that it should be a good wicket so that the batsmen and bowlers, both can perform well and the spectators can enjoy an even game. If that happens, more spectators will come and watch the games.”

Exceptions, more successful?

Five-time winners, Chennai Super Kings are among the teams that have enjoyed home comforts since the beginning. With the franchise having close ties with the state association TNCA, it has mostly got pitches to its liking. In 2019, after MS Dhoni was unhappy with the slow nature of the pitch, the state association went on to relay the entire square. For a venue that mostly had red soil content, it now also has black soil pitches.

Chennai Super Kings are among the teams that have enjoyed home comforts since the beginning (PTI)

But that hasn’t stopped CSK from having conditions best suited to their needs. It means, the franchise has been able to assemble a squad at the auctions which is best suited to the conditions at Chepauk. It is the reason why CSK have a win percentage of over 70 at Chepauk — the most for any IPL franchise at home.

While they have traditionally preferred pitches where 160-180 is a par total with good assistance for spinners, CSK have drifted away from the plan since last season.

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With Impact Player rule in play and extra runs needed, they have altered between flat decks and slow surfaces depending on the opposition. This season, after playing on flat decks against Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Gujarat Titans, they went with a slow pitch against Kolkata Knight Riders, a side that has plenty of power-hitters.

It begs the question, should a tournament with a clear-cut home and away format of league games offer teams a home advantage? The noticeable change that the SRH batting has undergone could only benefit more from a home surface that suits their batters’ needs. Or as Gavaskar mentioned the other night, “if they score 250 plus totals, they are going to win.”

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