Ipl 2024 started with a bang. With the home side Chennai Super Kings emerging victorious over Royal Challengers Bangalore, Ruturaj started his captaincy journey with a victory. Young Indians from both the teams in the form of Anuja Rawat and Shivam Dubey got a chance to display their talent. Everything went well. But a more serious issue which got unnoticed was the unpredictable behaviour of the Chepauk pitch. Was the pitch dangerous to play?

The first instance of the unevenness of the pitch was seen when Faf du Plessis misjudged the delivery bowled by Tushar Deshpande, which hit on his thigh pad and baffled him. The second instance of it was seen shortly after in the same over when one delivery bowled at lesser than 140 clicks per hour went over the batter's head and bounced so high that keeper MS Dhoni had to take a high leap to stop it. And then, on a number of occasions it was seen that the balls went over the keeper's head for a boundary.

Things like this happening once or twice in a match is normal. But the same happening on multiple deliveries which weren't even bowled with that speed definitely raises the question of the abnormal behaviour of the wicket. Fortunately none of the batters were at the receiving end of injury due to the uneven bounce, but it definitely is a thing to worry. With the new set of rules, where 2 bouncers are legally allowed in an over, the bowlers tried to use it to their advantage, but the result today was a much higher bounce than anticipated.

The bounce and the pitch today resembles to the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium wicket (now called as Arun Jaitley stadium) in 2009, when Sri Lanka toured India. Initially it looked like the visitors are falling prey to some great Indian bowling when they were reduced to 5 wickets for 36 runs. But later on, when the Sinhalese batters complained about the wicket and its dangerous nature, the umpires waited to check a few other balls which bounced way too higher. And finally the game was called off terming the wicket to be dangerous and unfit to play, and a ban of 1 year was levied on the stadium.

In that case, it was one odd match which was supposed to happen. However in this case, it was the first of the 7 matches Chepauk is going to host in this IPL. And hence, one must pay more attention to the details of the wicket, to make it safe for the players to bat on. With the newly allowed 2 bouncers in the ongoing IPL, there are significant chances of the bowlers trying to go more shorter. And a wicket like these could be more lethal for the batters if the bowlers decide to do so. Therefore, one should be careful about the Chepauk wicket, even though no one has appealed for it to be a dangerous wicket, as we can't wait for someone to get injured before we appeal.