The last few matches in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) have been absurd to say the least. The IPL-2021 have already started showing a lot of surprises. Teams having am advantage or some sort of an upper hand have given away the match and have lost from a winning match. Such matches are an absolute heartbreak for the fans of the losing team as they lose after getting so close. I mean, who likes to watch their favorite team choke? However, an important point to be noted is that the matches where the team holding the upper hand lost were all in Chennai. To make things more obnoxious, teams have lost only while chasing. Why are teams losing from a winning position in Chennai? Why are teams not able to chase in Chennai? Today we shall be taking a look at Why teams are struggling while chasing in Chennai.
IPL-2021 has seen three such matches so far. All of these three matches have come in the last week. While it is no secret that the Chepauk hasn’t been kind to batsmen, teams haven’t been able to even score 30-40 runs in the last five overs over here this season. That does sound astonishing dosen’t it? While one must remember that three of these matches consisted the same team which lost twice. It also consisted of a team which won twice, despite being a losing position. The two teams being Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Mumbai Indians (MI). While RCB did chase the target in the IPL-2021 opener, they too struggled and it took an AB De Villiers masterclass to get them across the line. The Chennai pitch has got worser as time has progressed. It is more on the sticky side, but yeah Chennai has always offered slower tracks. Such conditions ensure that the ball doesn’t come on to the bat really well and batters find it hard to get going over here, especially as the innings progresses. If one takes an example of the RCB vs SRH game. Johnny Bairstow and Manish Pandey got out while trying to hit the big shots. the ball clearly did a lot and it required a special skill in order to score runs in the tricky phase of the game. The tricky phase of the game starts after the 12th or 13th over.
Above all, the most important reason behind teams struggling to chase targets in Chennai in IPL-2021 is the fact that the set batsman isn’t there untill the end. It is really hard for a new batsman to start scoring runs freely in Chennai. As we saw, the pitch gets harder as time progresses and only a batsman who has been batting on this track for a while would know the exact behavioural patterns of the track. It was rather unfortunate that the set batsman in each match recklessly threw his wicket. You need your set batsman to help your team get over the line. Like we saw yesterday, Warner and Bairstow’s unnecessary dismissals triggered a collapse and this SRH lost yesterday. Last but not the least, you need your experienced guys to do the job. SRH lack experience in their middle order and hence, they faltered twice. KKR did have their experienced players in the middle but couldn’t get the job done as they were still new at the crease and were struggling to middle the ball. This just shows how inhuman AB De Villiers is! He was the only one to keep calm and win the match for RCB while chasing in Chennai.