IPL 2026 – ‘Bit of an up-and-down curve’ – Hemang Badani on navigating home pitches

Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach Hemang Badani has said that his team has not come to terms with the pitches at their home ground in Delhi. He added that home sides don’t have a say in choosing the surfaces they play on, and that the BCCI “look after the surfaces”, which has been the case in the IPL for a while.

“We don’t have any control over the surfaces,” Badani said. “As much as one would like to think that we are in control of the surface that we want to play on, there is a clear mandate from the BCCI that they look after the surfaces and they are the ones who ensure that there’s no local side that gets benefit out of the surfaces. So you play what is presented to you. And yes, it’s been a bit of an up-and-down curve for us to understand what we are going to get at Delhi, which is our home.”

So far, DC have played five matches in IPL 2026 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium and have won just one, against Mumbai Indians (MI) last month. Towards the end of April, DC had to contend with two contrasting pitches: two days after playing on a pitch where 265 played 264, they were dismissed for 75 in 16.3 overs on a track that offered swing and bounce. On Tuesday, they encountered a slow, grippy pitch, which brought CSK’s spinners Akeal Hosein and Noor Ahmad into the contest.

“Seventy [75] one game, one game was 265. Again, this was a surface which spun,” Badani said. “But there’s little control that any side has on the surface. It’s not about us. I think the whole comp itself is quite neutral that way. Every side has to find a way to win those games. But yeah, ideally you want to have some consistency.”

On a helpful surface, left-arm wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav kept missing his lengths, conceding 34 runs in his three overs without taking a wicket. It extended Kuldeep’s poor form: he has bowled 30 overs this season, going at over ten an over while picking up only seven wickets so far.

Axar Patel has led DC’s spin attack, but he has struggled with the bat this season, scoring only 33 runs in seven innings at an average of 5.50 and strike rate of under 90.

Badani said he expected more from Kuldeep but offered his support to the bowler, as he did to Axar.

“They are people who have played cricket at the highest level,” Badani said. “Double World Cup winner. You work with them, you give them faith. They have faith in themselves in the sense that they have played the game, they have figured out the ways and means of going through the grind, ways and means of struggles and how you come back. They’ve done it all.

“And I have faith that he [Axar] will come good. He’s had a wonderful time with the ball today: four overs, 24 runs. I would take it on any given day. And it’s more the case of… If we had put on about 20-odd runs, Sanju [Samson, who scored 87* in CSK’s chase] would not have been able to pace the innings the way he did.”

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