The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) smashed a massive total of 226 runs against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at the latter’s home ground, M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, on Monday evening. In reply, RCB too got going with their chase with a gigantic partnership of 126 (61) between Maxwell and Faf du Plessis, both teams providing great batting entertainment to the fans that had thronged at this Stadium.
A couple of matches ago here, the Lucknow Super Giants had chased down the target of 213 against the hosts, RCB. Over, the years, while Royal Challengers Bangalore bowling has remained poor at this venue in particular, many big totals have been chased down.
The M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore is duly known as a batsman’s paradise. In T20s since 2018, the average first innings total here has been 182 and the average first innings winning total has been 189.
So why is the Chinnaswamy such a high-scoring ground? 2 reasons:
Flat pitch
The pitch at Royal Challengers Bangalore home ground M Stadium is very flat, and is the best batting surface of all 10 venues in the IPL. There is only sometimes a little grass left which can give little help to the fast bowlers in the initial couple of overs with the new ball.
After that, batting is relatively easier at the Stadium than in most of the other grounds in India. The surface in Bangalore for the T20 matches is flat, very little grass and it is a bit dry in the day/afternoon matches here in which spinners can get some assist, but not much so as to trouble the batters much.
The boundary dimensions at the M. Stadium are the other key factor that emboldens the batters to play their shots and go for the sixes. Chinnaswamy Stadium is amongst the smallest grounds in the IPL, having short square boundaries especially.
In a recent game between Challengers Bangalore and DC here, one of the square boundaries from one of the ends was only 61 meters while another was 66 meters. The boundary side boundary was 51-56 meters while the straight boundary was 70 meters.
