IPL: Taking away the home advantage from team India?

Nothing more special than winning the world cup in your home. The great gimmick of that match - was when MS Dhoni promoted himself up the order of Yuvraj Singh because Muttiah Muralitharan was bowling, and he was confident in playing him. Why? - The Net practices in Chennai Super Kings training camp. MS practiced a lot with the legend Muttiah during the last IPL tournament.

IPL: Where you find all the best from across the globe together

The IPL welcomes players from all the major countries playing cricket. This festival event of two months receives participation from the top cricketers across the globe. The bests of Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, and yes, the Caribbeans - West Indies spend their 2-3 months’ time understanding and adapting the Indian pitches, dew factors, and grounds. More than that, they create a huge fan base who are always ready to cheer for them. In fact, a few years back, even former skipper Virat Kohli quoted, "So many players all around the world have played in the IPL for 8-9 years now, so they are pretty familiar with the Indian conditions," during a panel discussion after the launch of the ICC tournament. 

Great speculation does arise that this continuous IPL every year has taken away the home advantage for international matches from team India. Former South African coach Corrie van Zyl too supported this by saying, "Players from around the world have now played a lot of limited overs cricket in India. This may reduce India's home-ground advantage. A familiarity with this level makes India a second home for so many of these cricketers. Delhi, for example, is like a second home to AB de Villiers."

Intuition vs reality 

Spoilers ahead, if we look deep into the stats, this may not be the actual case. Though the scenarios tend to paint this picture that IPL has taken away home-ground advantage, one of the forgotten aspects of this is the advantage that Indian players get when facing overseas players on Indian soil, from a different angle. While overseas players get an edge in adapting to Indian conditions, Indian players, too, gain an advantage in understanding tactics used by other international players in the Indian subcontinent to trap players. 

If we look at the data, the number of series won across all formats by Indian teams post IPL at home has significantly increased by 18 to 20 percent. According to the data from Espn Cricinfo, India has played 459 matches across all formats from 1933 to 2008 and had won 75% of them at home ground, whereas this number significantly increased to 93% after the commencement of IPL. From the calendar year 2010-to 2021, India has won 40 of their 55 matches, making them lead the charts of highest win percentage in their backyard, i.e., 73%. Australia occupies the second spot with 65%. 

Nearly every sports team plays matches at home and as visitors. And different sports see different levels of home advantage. This understanding of the player strategies goes both ways. Not only do other teams find it challenging to defeat Indian teams in Indian conditions, but Indian teams also find it challenging to conquer other teams in overseas conditions. And that is what probably makes Gabba win special for Indians. No matter how much overseas players play here in the IPL, they cannot match the years of training Indian players have on their home ground. Thus, IPL should not be feared as a symbol of taking away home advantage.