The Indian Premier League is finally all set to positively (Covid – 19 negatively) start in the united Arab Emirates, instead of India, from the 19th of September. It is a major cricketing league with a lot of logistics and participation but the organisers, BCCI, have been able to find ways to hold the league in 2020 as well.
The squads were formed based on the assumption that the tournament will be held in India in 9 different stadiums but this has been given a blow with the matches shifting to UAE, where there are only 3 stadiums playing host toll all the teams with very different playing conditions. Who will still have the home ground advantage? What about the players? How hard hitting will the batsmen have to be? Who will be the decisive players in every team? Analysing all in the blogpost article!
ANALYSING THE GROUND DYNAMICS
- THE GROUND DIMENSIONS: The grounds in the UAE are huge. They are huge. They are bigger than the ones present in India and to add to the dismay of the batsmen, the pitches may not be very favourable for the big boundaries. With the grounds to be bigger, the number of boundaries may reduce and teams with a formidable power hitting middle order will be at an advantage in matches. Teams such as KKR, CSK, and MI do have some very good hitters who can even play spin pretty well. They are followed by teams such as KXIP but the main focus will be on how the bowlers of the opposition bowl.
- THE PITCHES: The pitches are not very favourable to the batsmen or the bowlers as such but the advantage will go to teams with a proper spin bowlers. The pitches are very similar to the ones in Chepauk as the conditions are almost similar, the same strong and unbearable heat and other factors such as water and soil, and this does mean that yes, the pitches in UAE do favour spin. Two of the pitches, the ones in Sharjah and in the Sheikh Zayed stadium in Abu Dhabi, will give an edge to the spinners specially. The pitches have been seen to be batsmen friendly but the spin plays a very important role.
- Weather Conditions: What will probably be amiss will be wet matches and a lot of due in the weather in UAE and this would play in a lot since it will affect how the grounds during the matches will be. It should also be noted that UAE is 1 and a half hours behind IST as because it is towards the west, since the matches which will scheduled as per the IST for comfort of the Indian audience, the matches may start before complete sundown and even the schedule for the day matches in very interesting as there are several scheduled day matches which will have an even hotter environment.
- THE HOME GROUND ADVANTAGE? – It seems as if CSK might have a slight home ground advantage over the others as the spin effect and the heat conditions are similar to the one they have in Chepauk and if this does prove to be even 75%true, then CSK might easily emerge as winners and other teams might face several difficulties.
THE COVID AND THE PLAYERS CHALLENGE
The complete Player analysis will follow in a separate article/blogpost but this one will be looking at a slightly generalised view of everything in the context of Covid – 19 restrictions as well.
Teams have already reported issues with quarantine rules at places and with many players yet to arrive in the UAE, it will be very difficult for all the teams to coordinate their practice sessions and perfectly time everything and get everyone enough team practice and clearly decide on the line – ups in such a short period of time. Plus as some cases have already been reported, if Covid – 19 cases are detected in the players, the the infected players will not be available for a minimum of a week to 2 weeks and they also need to be physically fit during the time.
The difference in the schedules for all the countries has created the problem of conflicting player availabilities and hence, some teams also have the issue of their top players joining in late which will have a lot of effect on their line up and plans and this issue will not affect them a lot as the initial 1 week has about only 2 matches per team out of the 14 total but yes, some teams will be at a disadvantage as compared to the others.
There has also been 1 new issue of Suresh Raina being unavailable due to personal reasons and this is definitely an issue for CSK as one of their top players has had to leave the team and will be unavailable and this may cause issues in the middle order and also in the overall squad as CSK lose a worthy player, but CSK still have a very strong squad.
That is all for this preview which was at a glance. More detailed analysis and previews following soon !
spielens 