CHENNAI: When Rohit Sharma and his counterparts from other nations not named Pakistan boarded the flight for the Champions Trophy, the captains of six of the eight teams would have had to consider and take on board multiple variables in order to plan for the assignment. Conditions of the different venues, temperature, dew in the evening, pace v. spin at the ground, weather conditions, what combinations work best... this inexhaustible list would either have been supplied to the captains by their data team or they themselves would have looked it up.
The Pakistan captain, Mohammad Rizwan, would have had a working knowledge of the conditions throughout the country. This is why home advantage, more often than not, matters an awful lot in cricket — it's no co-incidence that the hosts have either won or at least advanced to the final of each of the last four 50-over World Cups.
Thanks to geopolitics and an unfair hybrid model, one captain has an even greater advantage than Rizwan — Sharma.
Think about it. The Indian team has and will continue to stay at the same place, play at the same venue, not take any flights for the duration of their stay and know that as long as they remain in the tournament, they will dictate the logistics and the travel plans of their remaining opponents.
Take for example, New Zealand's travel schedule. They have travelled to Dubai to face the Men In Blue on Sunday. Considering they have already reached the last four, the Kiwis will be on a return flight to Pakistan on Monday for that semifinal. If both India and New Zealand win their respective semifinal matches, India will go back to their hotel rooms, wake up refreshed, have breakfast and plan for the final in calm, unhurried manner.
Mitchell Santner & Co? Wake up, head to the airport, take another international flight to Dubai.
Consider South Africa, one of India's potential semifinal opponents. After playing in Karachi, they moved to Rawalpindi before coming back to Karachi for Saturday's game against England. If they face India, they would then have to fly to Dubai.
This is the kind of advantage the hybrid model has created. Just to be clear, the Indian team didn't ask for this advantage. If anything, all the participating teams, including Pakistan, signed off on the schedule before it was rubber-stamped by the International Cricket Council (ICC) but there's still a debate to be had. Whether Indian fans like it or not, the people who have addressed this issue are right in that there's an advantage.
Rassie van der Dussen became the latest to speak about this. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that the ability to train and play in one place, coupled with the absence of inter-city or inter-country travel, gives India an edge that they will be under pressure to fully exploit," the batter said at a press conference. "In a sense, it puts more pressure on them because whoever is going to play them in the semi or potentially the final is going to go there and the conditions are going to be foreign but they (India) are going to be used to it. The pressure would be on them to get it right because they have all that knowledge."
That last word — knowledge — is one of cricket's greatest currencies. Sure, you can argue that there are no secrets and a lot of them have played matches at Dubai in the recent past but it doesn't work that way. There's still a bedding in period, a bedding in period India have already been through. India's next opponents? Their bedding in period will be on the job, including in the semifinal or the final.
Michael Atherton, while speaking on the Sky Sports podcast, called it a 'hard-to-quantify advantage, but an undeniable advantage'.
It allowed the Indian think-tank to load their side with as many as five spinners, including at least one match-up spinner in the form of Washington Sundar, at the expense of an extra seamer. These little things matter a lot in a global event.
It's why India, who entered the tournament in red-hot form, are actually the favourites. Van der Dussen sang from the same hymn sheet. "The onus would be on them to use that advantage," he said. "The pressure would be on them to get it right."
