'Home Advantage Is Real': Aakash Chopra Wants IPL Franchises To Demand Helpful Pitches

Ajinkya Rahane and Zaheer Khan have sparked a debate on whether franchises get to dictate the nature of pitches used for home matches. Should an IPL franchise be given the right to dictate the nature of pitches used for their home fixtures? While BCCI guidelines prohibit such ‘home advantage’, the recent comments from Ajinkya Rahane and Zaheer Khan have sparked a debate. Rahane, who is captaining defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders , wished for a pitch at Eden Gardens that would be helpful to his spinners after the team’s loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the venue in what was the IPL 2025 opener.

Then earlier this week, Lucknow Super Giants mentor Zaheer Khan lamented how the pitch for their first home game seemed to be more suited for their opponent – Punjab Kings – as they suffered an eight-wicket defeat. Former India opener Aakash Chopra feels that IPL franchise should have the right to demand conducive pitches to give them the home advantage. “I feel every home team should have the right to decide the kind of surface that they want," Chopra said on ESPNcricinfo .



“They should demand the surface, and they should get it, is what I feel, because home advantage is real, and that comes in only two forms: one is the surface that you choose and the second is the crowd support that is there. Other than that it’s an away game." “The paramount thing is the surface they are going to play on – crowd might still be secondary.

If you take away the pitch, I think whole plans completely derail," he added. However, former India allrounder Sanjay Bangar opines that teams are well aware of the conditions they are likely to face at home and as such, should use that knowledge and past experience to pick suitable players. “You can clearly build a team taking into account the past knowledge and past experience of what has happened on that particular venue, and pick a team.

But if you pick a team and then ask the groundsman (for a particular kind of pitch), then I don’t think that will go down well with the system," Bangar said..