IPL 2021: Fun With the Neutral Pitches

After a season in UAE, IPL 2021 is being conducted back in India. But due to COVID protocols, the matches will be held only in some stadiums in neutral pitches. But that is making the tournament even more interesting.

So we are in the IPL 2021 with some matches played on the neutral grounds and stadiums because of the pandemic.

Well neutral pitches means that there will be no home-ground for any team. For ex: CSK will not play any of its match in Chennai. They will play five games in Mumbai, four in Delhi, three in Bangalore and last two in Kolkata.

But I think we are having great impact of neutral pitches on the IPL games and if you’ll observe you will get to know that neutral pitches are making IPL even more interesting.

Let’s take Mumbai Indians as an example. Mumbai has a bowling line-up that is advantageous for Wankhede. At Wankhede you need quick bowlers. They have Bumrah, Boult and Jansen who bowl with pretty good pace. But that bowling line up is suitable for Wankhede, not for Chennai. In Chennai you need spinners, not quick bowlers.

Chennai’s pitch works better for CSK and even for DC, RCB and KKR because they have plenty of good spinners. Whereas in Mumbai Indians they have only Rahul Chahar as a leading spinner for them and he turned the game in MI vs KKR in Chennai by taking wickets of Tripathi, Rana and Morgan. He made Kolkata’s middle order collapse (though they threw their wickets).

But one bowler is not going to do wonders in every match.

Whereas take Delhi Capitals as an example. They have Ashwin, Amit Mishra as good spinners. They have Rabada, Nortje and Avesh Khan who bowl with good pace. So they have a bowling side which works good on any pitch.

Conclusion

Yeah I know that pitches don’t matter so much in T20 cricket but at the key moments, pitch matters. And we all know that there are many key moments in the IPL and that’s what makes the league so entertaining.