Sanjay Bangar, however, feels all pitches must adhere to broad guidelines, with local characteristics bringing in natural variety
ESPNcricinfo staff02-Apr-20259:28
Chopra: Teams should dictate nature of pitches at home
Should IPL teams be able to tailor conditions at their home grounds to suit their playing styles? And if so, how much home advantage is too much?These have been major talking points over the early weeks of IPL 2025. Kolkata Knight Riders head coach Chandrakant Pandit has said his team has little or no say in pitch preparation at Eden Gardens. Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming has dismissed the idea that his team enjoys significant home advantage at Chepauk, and said they’ve struggled to read their home pitches in recent years. And after his team’s defeat to Punjab Kings, Lucknow Super Giants mentor Zaheer Khan suggested that the Ekana pitch looked like it had been prepared by the opposition team’s curator.Former India opener Aakash Chopra has a clear stance on the issue: allow teams to dictate conditions at their home venues.Related
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“I feel every home team should have the right to decide the kind of surface that they want,” Chopra said on ESPNcricinfo’s IPL show, Time Out. “They should demand the surface, and they should get it, is what I feel, because home advantage is real, and that comes in only two forms: one is the surface that you choose and the second is the crowd support that is there. Other than that it’s an away game.”The paramount thing is the surface they are going to play on – crowd might still be secondary. If you take away the pitch, I think whole plans completely derail.”The issue of home advantage in the IPL is complicated by the fact that three teams play some of their games at a second “home” ground – Delhi Capitals in Visakhapatnam, Punjab Kings in Dharamsala, and Rajasthan Royals in Guwahati.”From time to time I actually scratch my head [about this], and I still haven’t found an answer […] because you don’t pick a team based on how the pitch is going to be in Guwahati or in Dharamsala. You pick a [Royals] team [on the basis of], okay, I’m going to play seven games at Sawai Mansingh Stadium [in Jaipur], ideally,” Chopra said. “Or Chennai will pick a team that is ideal for Chepauk for those seven games. And if you deny them that opportunity to play the right kind of team that you picked thinking, that this is the kind of surface that we want, if you don’t get that surface, then it just doesn’t work out. So in my opinion, every team should actually be allowed to dictate the way the pitches are to be made.”Delhi Capitals are one of three teams who play some of their IPL games at a second ‘home’ venue•BCCI
Bangar: ‘You do not want the game to be too lopsided’On the same show, former India allrounder Sanjay Bangar, who has also been head coach at Punjab Kings (2014-16) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (2021-23) expressed a different view, that there be certain broad guidelines that all pitches must adhere to, with local characteristics of various venues bringing in natural variety.”I think still BCCI would like to have a little bit of control over it, and maintain the characteristics of a particular surface,” Bangar said. “If you totally give it to the hands of the franchise, you do not really want the game to be too lopsided as well, so I’m of the opinion [of having] a little bit of uniformity wherein not having too much of a say for the home side, still there is enough variety in terms of the vast nature of our country wherein cricket is played all across the nation, in itself has variations in terms of red soil, black soil and all of that. I’m of the opinion that a little bit of direction or guideline is always better.”Bangar suggested that it might be more difficult for teams to create pitches with a range of characteristics at smaller grounds such as the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, where only the two most central pitches on the square are used for IPL matches. Grounds with bigger square boundaries can play their IPL games on a greater number of pitches.”In RCB, Chinnaswamy, there are only two pitches on which you can play games, because of the size of the ground,” Bangar said. “And generally, you can’t have a lot of variation [between] those two surfaces, because it is practically impossible to do that.”With this in mind, Bangar felt the best way for teams to make use of home advantage would be to use their knowledge of home conditions while building their squads during the retention and auction stages.”You can clearly build a team taking into account the past knowledge and past experience of what has happened on that particular venue, and pick a team,” he said. “But if you pick a team and then ask the groundsman [for a particular kind of pitch], then I don’t think that will go down well with the system.”It’s harder for curators to prepare pitches to order at smaller venues like the Chinnaswamy•BCCI
‘I’m not asking you to remove chicken from butter chicken’Chopra remained firm in advocating for teams to ask curators for specific pitch characteristics, and felt there were enough checks and balances within the IPL to prevent home advantage from going too far.”There is a match referee in the end, if you think the pitch is not suitable for cricket,” he said. “[If] it’s a rank turner because they have Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy and Anukul Roy [all three are KKR spin bowlers] and they are going to now make a pitch that is unplayable because it’s turning so much, there is a match referee, just pull them up. There is a fair play award for all we care.”You should have something to actually ensure that you’re not compromising the sanctity of the game. If it is not going that far, please allow [teams to dictate pitch preparation].”Chopra used a culinary metaphor to illustrate the limits of this.”I’m not asking you to remove chicken from butter chicken,” he said. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying, okay, can we just make it slightly milder? Can we make it slightly less oily?”What ownership do IPL teams have over their home grounds, though? The BCCI’s member state associations own and administer the grounds, and are the employers of the groundstaff.”The thing is, the franchise pays a particular fee to the venue,” Bangar said. “They do not own the ground, they do not pay the curators. I think there would be a time and place [in the future] where the franchise may have their own grounds, may have their own groundstaff, and then they can [make pitches to] order. At the moment, they’re just living on rent, so to say. So when you live on rent, you can’t totally make a lot of changes.”
