Champions Trophy: Teams Ready to Battle it Out on the Pitch

Mumbai: The variation in the average score while batting first at Pakistan's three Champions Trophy venues - Lahore, Karachi, and Rawalpindi - is 12 runs. These venues are known for producing high-scoring matches, with Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium recording the highest total of 290 runs. In contrast, Dubai International Stadium, the fourth venue in the competition, produces 42 fewer runs compared to Lahore.

There cannot be a single algorithm to go past the winning line for this ICC tournament is different in more ways than one. But certain distinct features of each venue are noticeable.

Batting-friendly Lahore

Defending champions Pakistan don’t play a league match in Lahore, where the average winning score while batting first climbs to 317 runs. If the hosts qualify for knockout action, they play both their semi-final and the final in Lahore, unless India makes the final. In which case Dubai will see a re-match of the arch-rivals – they face off in a Group A league clash on Feb 23.

Three of the four Group B teams England, Australia and Afghanistan would be happy to play two of their three league matches in Lahore. England, coming off a poor series in India, would certainly like returning to decks friendlier for batters and less for spinners.

Pacy Rawalpindi

Of the four venues, Rawalpindi is the place to play if you are a fast bowler. The Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium pitch sees a lot more pace used than spin (62.3%), new ball swings the most (0.95 degrees), pacers extract the most bounce (78cm) off a good length and it takes the least spin (2.2 degrees). Bangladesh play two of their Group B matches here and their pace department led by express speedster Nahid Rana will look to extract assistance.

Spin-friendly Karachi

Among the three venues in Pakistan, the Karachi pitch sees the most spin used compared to pace (49.6%), the ball spins the most (3.1 degrees) and the new ball swings the least (0.74%). South Africa play the most – two Group B matches – here, and left-armers Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi would fancy their chances.

Dubai’s slow pitches

There’s been plenty of chatter around India’s decision to go with five spinners in the squad. Some suggest that this could be a misguided ploy given that the recent ILT20 action saw more pace used than spin, and significantly more wickets (68%) falling to pace. Similarly, IPL 2020 played in the UAE saw fast bowlers having a significant say. But T20 has slowly separated into a different sport. Even drawing conclusions based on Dubai ODI numbers requires some mining. Take away associate nations’ action and that makes it a smaller sample size but provides more relevant numbers.

CricViz data of ODI cricket played in Dubai 2017 onwards featuring full member nations shows the pitch taking good turn (3.1 degrees), although the quantum of spin usage over pace is only marginally more (50.2%). Pacers stay in the game and take plenty more wickets (75) than spinners (53), but spin brings down the scoring rate (4.70) a lot more than pace (5.04). This is most evident in the middle overs – the average score comes down (138-4) and the run-rate dips (4.6).

This is where India would want their spinners to come to the fore. Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja are their primary spinners with Axar Patel doing the supporting act. In Varun Chakravarthy, India have picked a mystery spinner who they might want to play against certain opponents. India are the best placed of the eight teams to plan as they play only at Dubai.

When it comes to pace and Dubai, Shaheen Shah Afridi’s twin strikes, swinging in to send back Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul in the 2021 T20 World Cup, stand out. But of the four venues, the new ball swings here the least in ODI cricket (0.74%), suggesting that it doesn’t take long for the shine to go off. The grass on the pitch means fast bowlers do get good bounce (73 cm) off a good length.

“Ultimately, it will all depend on which of the six-seven pitches on offer they go with,” says Lalchand Rajput, the UAE head coach. “In Mumbai, you can predict the ball will generally carry. In Kanpur, it will not. In Dubai, some black soil pitches have less clay content, which are slower and take less carry. Other pitches have more in it for pacers.”

With the matches starting early at 1 pm local time, dew may have a lesser impact than on view during the T20 World Cup.

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