IPL Venue: The fallacy behind the advantage of playing on home ground

Certain teams feel playing at neutral grounds and away venues to be a disadvantage, as playing at home ground gives the advantage of intimate knowledge of the pitch, ground dimensions and known settled combination.

Wankhede is the home ground for Mumbai Indians

When the BCCI declared its intention to hold IPL 2022 across four venues in Maharashtra, a few IPL franchises raised their voice regarding Mumbai Indians playing at their home venue. Mumbai Indians, over time, have been one of the biggest beneficiaries of playing at home ground, Wankhede. They own an impenetrable fortress at Wankhede. 

"None of the other teams are getting home matches. The franchises have raised this concern. The franchisees don't have an issue with Mumbai Indians playing the bulk of their matches at DY Patil Stadium and in Pune. It will be unfair if MI play a lot of their matches at Wankhede, which has been their den for years. Even the Brabourne stadium is fine. Hopefully, the BCCI will look into the matter," an anonymous franchise member told Times of India.

Restricted venue for IPL 2022

The decision to restrict the number of venues responded to the Covid-19i affected IPL 2021. During the first phase of IPL 2021 in India, the BCCI had ensured that no team played a single match on its home turf when matches were held in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad. The previous edition saw a Covid-19 outbreak in the IPL camps of various in teams despite following strict bio-bubble protocols. This year, Covid-19 is in much control in India and to avoid such a sudden outbreak, the decision to reduce the number of venues has been taken.

In response to fingers raised at a home ground benefit for Mumbai Indians, captain Rohit Sharma and coach Mahela Jayawardene remarked that teams need to approach Indian Premier League  2022 as a 'neutral tournament'.

No home advantage for Mumbai Indians?

Rohit Sharma said, "Seventy to 80% of the squad hasn't played in Bombay before. Only myself, Surya [Suryakumar Yadav], [Kieron] Pollard, Ishan [Kishan] and [Jasprit] Bumrah have played in Bombay; others have not played [that much]. So, there is no such thing as an added advantage. We are all playing in Bombay after two years. The other franchises played in Bombay last year. We didn't get to play."

Supporting this, Jayawardene too added that opposition teams have more experience of playing at Mumbai pitches. Apart from this, for the first time in 11 years, the IPL will be played among 10 teams. Like all other teams, Mumbai Indians have also seen a tremendous transformation with the players in the team. A crucial change came in breaking the Bumrah-Boult pairing, but now the team has new experienced faces in the form of Tymal Mills and Jaydev Unadkat, who will have to back up Jasprit Bumrah's pace.

4 Venues - 74 Matches

With just four venues for the 74-match IPL league, it will be a challenge for the curators to maintain the quality of pitches over two months. One can expect more bounce on the red soil pitches of Wankhede, MCA and D Y Patil Stadium, while the black soil surface in Pune is expected to offer more turn. One can expect at least the first half of the tournament to be a high-scoring affair. 

It's evident that the captain's decision to select stable playing 11 and understand the ground situation will be core.