Sluggish pitch scuttles CSK plans

Now, the Chennai Super Kings find themselves in the same situation as their opponents, the advantage of playing at home largely negated by relaid pitches that have been low, slow, fickle and totally batting-unfriendly.

One of the reasons for Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team remaining undefeated at home throughout the length of IPL IV was its familiarity with conditions, and working out game plans best suited to making the most of playing at Chepauk.

After IPL IV, when the square was dug up and the pitches relaid, it’s now a level-playing field for all teams, and Chennai have seen their well-documented and assiduously exploited advantage go out the window.

For eight matches during IPL IV, through confidence and determination, the Super Kings crushed all-comers in their backyard. Following Sunday night’s disappointingly tame capitulation to Trinidad & Tobago, they have now lost two of their three Champions League encounters, and stand on the brink of elimination from a competition they had won last year.

Coach Stephen Fleming admitted that the new strips at Chepauk were a challenge to his team. “If it was last year’s pitch, we would have been more confident about the way we approached it but we are still working on how best to formulate an innings,” the former New Zealand skipper acknowledged. “Is it to go hard at the start or conserve wickets? We still haven’t cracked the code of how to play on this track. Not exposing too many middle-order players in clumps, which has been happening when players try to force the pace on these pitches, becomes a crucial aspect.

“The conditions really dictate your style of play. If you learn to play a certain style, and that’s what we did last year for the IPL, then it becomes a real advantage. Here, we are still trying to figure out what a good score is. From a cricket sense, the advantage is a little bit negated because it’s a new pitch,” he added.

Twenty20 cricket’s spectator-friendliness is a direct consequence of the number of fours and sixes that rain from booming willows. On Sunday, however, two matches combined produced only 37 fours and eight sixes, and a grand total of 435 runs from 77 overs.

Hardly exhilarating stuff!

It will, of course, be doing the Super Kings grave injustice if their past victories at this venue are attributed merely to familiarity with home conditions. Saying that, the knowledge of what to expect can do wonders to the morale and psyche of a team, and it’s precisely that handicap that the holders have had to grapple with this time around.

“There was a bit of variable bounce on the track,” conceded Super Kings opener Mike Hussey. “But as professional players, we should be able to adapt to all kinds of pitches.
Most newly laid pitches take time to bed in. Come next IPL, I’m sure there will be plenty of runs on this wicket.”

Mumbai Indians’ James Franklin, who batted on the same surface when it was freshest on Sunday afternoon, piped in, “It's probably one of the more challenging pitches I've played on in my career. It was really, really hard looking to score runs up front and it was a real graft.”

The Chidambaram stadium will host the second semifinal on Saturday, as well as Sunday’s final. Potentially match-winning scores in the region of 110 or 120 will hardly do justice to the magnitude of the occasion.