The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 home advantage controversy has drawn a lot of attention, with a number of coaches and experts expressing their opinions on whether or not teams should be in charge of pitch preparation at their home stadiums. Aakash Chopra, a former cricket player for India who is now a broadcaster, has supported letting home teams control the surface because home advantage is an important aspect of the game.
Head coach Chandrakant Pandit of the Kolkata Knight Riders had concerns early in the 2025 Indian Premier League over the team’s lack of influence over the Eden Gardens pitch’s preparation. Stephen Fleming, the head coach of the Chennai Super Kings, also disclosed that his side struggles to read the surfaces at Chepauk, meaning they don’t have a big home advantage.
Zaheer Khan, the coach of the Lucknow Super Giants, later noted that the surface at Ekana Stadium appeared to have been set up in the opposition’s favour. According to Chopra, home teams have to have the authority to request particular pitch conditions. Chopra emphasised that the pitch is a key component of team plans and that teams lose an essential component of their planning if they are unable to affect it.
“In my opinion, each home team ought to be able to choose the surface they desire. I believe that they should demand the surface and obtain it since home advantage is genuine and can only be obtained in two ways: first, by the surface you choose, and second, by the support of the crowd. It’s an away game aside from that. The surface on which they will perform is crucial; the audience may still come in second.
Chopra stated on ESPNcricinfo’s IPL program, Time Out, that “I think whole plans completely derail if you take away the pitch.”
Teams who play some of their home games at secondary locations like Visakhapatnam, Dharamsala, and Guwahati, such as the Delhi Capitals, Punjab Kings, and Rajasthan Royals, have a more difficult situation. The former acknowledges that this disadvantages these teams because they can’t assemble teams that are suited to a regular home field.
You don’t choose a team in Guwahati or Dharamsala based on the pitch’s characteristics, so occasionally I really scratch my head [about this] and still haven’t come up with a solution […]. You choose a [Royals] team [based on], and then, ideally, I’ll play seven games at Sawai Mansingh Stadium [in Jaipur]. Alternatively, Chennai will select a squad that is best suited for Chepauk for those seven matches. Furthermore, it simply doesn’t work out if you don’t give them the chance to play the team of their choice because you believe that this is the type of surface you want. Therefore, I believe that each club should be able to specify how the pitches are to be manufactured,” he continued.
It is something that BCCI would like to have some control over: Sanjay Bangar
However, in order to keep matches from being overly biassed, former India all-rounder Sanjay Bangar thinks the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) should retain some degree of authority.
“I believe that BCCI would still like to keep the features of a specific surface and have some influence over it. You don’t really want the game to be too unfair if you leave it to the franchise. For that reason, I think there should be a little bit of uniformity so that the home team doesn’t have too much influence, but there is still enough variety to reflect the vastness of our country, where cricket is played all over the place and has its own variations in terms of red and black soil. “I believe that a small amount of guidance or direction is always preferable,” Bangar stated.
Bangar added that as state associations oversee stadiums and curators, IPL teams do not own either of these. He said that franchises might eventually own their own grounds, giving them more authority over the conditions of the pitch. However, teams are effectively living on rent under the current arrangement, which makes it challenging for them to fully set the terms.
“Due to the size of the field, there are only two pitches available for games at RCB, Chinnaswamy. And generally speaking, it is nearly hard to have a lot of diversity [between] those two surfaces. It is obvious that you can choose a team by considering the prior information and experience of what has occurred at that specific location. However, I don’t think it would work well with the system if you choose a team and then ask the groundskeeper [for a specific type of pitch],” Bangar said.
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