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“It is not baseball”: Michael Clarke welcomes variety of surfaces for IPL games

April 2, 2025
<a href="https://revsportz.in/author/boria/" rel="author" class="url fn n" itemprop="url"><img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e660b408ca5a915f1c718d0cd98a879b?s=32&d=mm&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e660b408ca5a915f1c718d0cd98a879b?s=64&d=mm&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-32 photo' height='32' width='32' decoding='async'/> <span class="" itemprop="name">Boria Majumdar</span></a>
Eden Gardens pitch (Image: Debasis Sen)

For Michael Clarke, who led Australia to World Cup glory in 2015, the hue and cry over ‘home advantage’ in the Indian Premier League (IPL) is much ado about nothing. In the latest episode of Backstage with Boria, he spoke at length on how it’s been part of cricket’s fabric from the very beginning. 

“I think that is the way cricket is,” said Clarke. “It happens in international cricket. It happens in state cricket. And that is why I think Chennai [Super kings] have picked their squad based on the conditions that you generally get in Chennai. It spins.

“That is why they have got three class spinners. That is why they are going to be tough to beat in their own backyard if the pitch is like that. So, look, I do not see any controversy here at all.”

Already in this IPL, some venues have seen radically different conditions. “I think one of the advantages of playing at your home ground is you know your pitch so well,” said Clarke. “I was in Ahmedabad the other day and I saw the first game was on… It was a different colour soil. I cannot remember exactly what it was.

“It might have been the first game [there] – 240 runs scored in one innings. And then the second game that I commentated against Mumbai [Indians], because they have got so many power players, they [Gujarat Titans] wanted to put it on the black soil so the wickets stayed a bit lower.

 

“I am okay with that. If the captain and the coach, and the curator, say our strengths are spin bowling so we want the wicket to spin more, or if we go to Mitchell Starc when we want the ball to carry more, because that is our strength.

“You are going to play half your games at your home ground. You want other teams to come there and find it difficult to win there.”

What Clarke definitely didn’t want was homogeneity in conditions. “You cannot have every pitch the same. I do not agree with that. That is not cricket. It is not baseball where you just hit it on the full. Just bowl full tosses and hit it on the full. No, the surface is such an important part of our game.

“I think it is so important for them to be different. I do not want to see 270 play 270 in every T20 game. I do not think that is fair on the bowlers whatsoever. I do not think it is fair on the quicks. I do not think it is fair on the spinners. I do not think that is what the game is.

“There has still got to be that challenge, even though it is batting dominant.”