IPL: After KKR, CSK urge for more spin on their home turf at Chepauk

A week into the IPL, ‘home advantage’ seems to be a contentious issue for the franchises – and it’s turning the heat on the hapless pitch curators who brave the rain and shine to keep things ready. If the Kolkata Knight Riders captain Ajinkya Rahane raised the call for ‘some more spin’ after losing the opener against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Eden, now Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming says this is not the Chepauk wicket he has known all these years.   

 CSK, five-time champions, lost their way in chasing a challenging target by RCB on Friday night to suffer their first loss to Virat Kohli & Co at home since 2008. It was an embarrassing defeat as their batting collapsed but the yellow shirts, who were heavily banking on the ageless duo of Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, were left moaning that there was no assistance for their spinners.  

 ‘’Well, as we’ve been telling you for a number of years, there was no home advantage at Chepauk,’’ Fleming said after CSK, considered Invincibles at home, suffered their biggest defeat in Chennai. ‘’We’ve won away from home a couple of times. And we haven’t been able to read… we’ve been really honest with you. We haven’t been able to read the wickets here in the last couple of years. We are trying to come to grips each day with what we get, and we don’t know,’’ said the New Zealander, one of the longest serving coaches in the IPL.

 There seems to be some substance in Fleming’s contention as even last year, the Chepauk pitches on offer were no quite the slow turners where Mahendra Singh Dhoni & Co used to make their opposition grovel in the past.  The seam bowlers took 74 wickets while the spinners claimed only 25 at the venue last season. ‘’It’s not the Chepauk [of old] where you can just go in and play four spinners,’’ Fleming said.

While one has to wait and watch to find out if hosts Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) is ready to oblige the CSK management’s overtures, there was much ado about nothing in Kolkata with the curator – a former senior official of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) being made villain of the piece. Speaking to sports website Revsportz, veteran curator Sujan Mukherjee said there was no question of changing the nature of the wicket as the BCCI guidelines say the franchises cannot dictate terms about the preparation of the strips.

 Mukherjee went by the book but a section of rabid KKR fans promptly took it upon themselves to slam him on social media platforms for not adhering to the franchise’s requests. What made it even more farcical was the argument of two TV pundits – former Kiwi allrounder Simon Doull and Harsha Bhogle on air in Cricbuzz. Their point was that if the KKR management are not happy with the conditions at home, they should consider taking away the matches to any other venue in eastern India.

  A moronic suggestion as every franchise is keen to leverage their brand in the home city and it’s more so with the Shah Rukh Khan co-owned KKR. It’s an open secret that the KKR management, former CAB president Sourav Ganguly and the state government had worked overtime to ensure that the match between the Knights and Lucknow Super Giants – originally scheduled on the Ramnavami Day in Kolkata and facing logistical hurdles for police forces – don’t move out of the city.

 Meanwhile, a quick glance at the BCCI recommendations for pitch and ground preparation for IPL 2025 endorses the CAB curator Mukherjee’s view. While it says that the pitch and ground preparation during regular season matches is the prerogative of the ‘’Chief Curator of the host association under the guidance from BCCI appointed Venue Curator,’’ it adds: ‘’The franchise and the players shall not have any say in the preparation of the wicket.’’

What, incidentally, makes for a good pitch? ‘’The pitch should be prepared so that the character of the should stay the same for both innings and meet all of the following criteria: a) good pace and ball carry b) consistent bounce c) Little lateral seam movement d) Not excessive spin.

 The rules are clearly laid down but then, there are wheels within wheels. The drift is that the CAB management is expected to provide a drier wicket for KKR’s next game against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, so that their powerful batting line-up does not run away with the game and the likes of Varun Chakravarthy & Sunil Narine can thrive on such conditions.

 The pitches, as former England captain Michael Vaughan said, should not resemble ‘roads’ like the one at Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Hyderabad so that the likes of Tarvis Head and Avishek Sharma to make merry. If belters like those can make it a predictable affair, there is an inherent risk of spinning wickets providing for anti-climax even in a T20 game.

 It’s a job better left to experts than armchair critics!