6 days Ago
Former Royal Challengers Bengaluru and India head coach Sanjay Bangar recently came forward and backed the BCCI’s (Board of Control for Cricket in India) intervention in curating the pitches in play in the ongoing (Indian Premier League) 2025. It is interesting to note that a number of teams, like Kolkata Knight Riders and Punjab Kings, have come forward and talked about how they are not able to make the most of the pitches in play in their home matches. Speaking of the same, Sanjay Bangar opined that it is a good thing that the BCCI is intervening in such things; otherwise, the teams would have had massive home advantage.
“I think BCCI would still like to have a little bit of control over it and maintain the characteristics of a particular surface," Bangar said on ESPN Cricinfo. "If you totally give it to the hands of the franchise, you do not really want the game to be too lopsided as well, so I'm of the opinion [of having] a little bit of uniformity wherein not having too much of a say for the home side, still there is enough variety in terms of the vast nature of our country wherein cricket is played all across the nation, in itself has variations in terms of red soil, black soil and all of that. I'm of the opinion that a little bit of direction or guideline is always better,” Bangar added.
Furthermore, Bangar also talked about the lack of pitch variety at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. It is interesting to note that Royal Challengers Bengaluru lost their previous game of the IPL 2025 against Gujarat Titans at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. “In RCB, Chinnaswamy, there are only two pitches on which you can play games because of the size of the ground, and generally, you can't have a lot of variation [between] those two surfaces because it is practically impossible to do that,” Bangar said.
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