One of the major complaints from under-performing teams (read Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders) has been the absence of favorable pitches when playing at home. KKR skipper Nitish Rana has been quite vocal about not being given surfaces that could have helped them maximize the impact of their set of quality spinners.
The curator of Eden Gardens dismisses the argument, asking instead, tell me the clause that makes it mandatory for him to prepare a pitch to suit the home team.
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DC also has a similar complaint. He feels that the slow surface at the Arun Jaitley Stadium has proved to be quite a challenge for his batsmen.
DC skipper David Warner made it clear he was not happy with the pitches back home after DC scored their first 200-plus score of the season in an away game at Dharamsala earlier this week .
DC assistant coach Shane Watson agrees with Warner and has, in fact, put the blame on Delhi pitches for their poor performance in IPL 2023.
Watson argues that the make-up of DC’s batting order (top order to be precise) is heavy overseas including skipper Warner, Philip Salt, Prithvi Shaw, Mitchell Marsh and Rilee Rossouw and hence, their struggles at home.
During a media interaction on Friday, Watson said in response to a question from CricketNext, “To be honest, the pitches here in Delhi are not good.”
“They (pitches) are probably great if you’ve got a different setup for your team – if you’ve got a lot of Indian top-order batsmen then he might suit that team. That’s not the makeup of our squad ,” They said.
Watson explains how his top three players fired in unison on the Dharamsala pitch, which had plenty of bounce and didn’t turn much.
“So, as we saw that night, when we’re playing on a nice, conventional wicket, the ball travels well, it’s a real surface, the ball doesn’t turn a lot, we saw that really What could happen,” he said. Said.
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A cursory glance at DC’s home record would lead you to believe that Watson is on the money with his assessment. DC have managed to win only two of the six matches they have played at home so far this season. Three of his five wins have come in Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala.
He said, ‘We have foreign players (along with Prithvi Shaw) in our batting order and that is our strength. But when we come here to Delhi, unfortunately, because of the amount of cricket on this wicket block – it’s very dry, there’s not much grass on it – if any that highlights our batting setup especially at the moment ,” Watson said.
Watson may be right with his reasoning but the inconsistency of DC’s batsmen doesn’t survive postmortem. They haven’t exactly been on fire in the away matches with Dharamsala being the exception.
Watson, however, hopes that next season with DC having a similar team, the pitches will be more favorable to his batsmen.
“And hopefully, we are going to have a similar team next season, the conditions will be more suitable for the make-up of our team. There will be a more true batting surface which will then really show the world class batsmen that we have,” he said.
Out of the playoff race, DC next host Chennai Super Kings in what will be their final match of the season and a team that boasts of a quality spin department.
Watson, however, says the slowness of the pitch in Delhi is no excuse for their sorry performance, which began with five consecutive losses. However, this did not help his cause either.
“This is not an excuse for us not to perform well. The challenging conditions made it even more difficult for our batsmen to be at their best. Hopefully next season will be a big change as our team building has made it easier for us Won’t be easy,” Watson said.