The advantage of home ground – how it affects betting in cricket series

A home team usually gets a perceived lift in performance and often adopts a more attack-minded mentality. This happens across all sports, from football to rugby to cricket. Cricket in particular is an interesting sport to look at for how home advantage counts.

Some of the must win teams today on ClubSport include Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, don’t they? Such football squads may likely set up with the same tactics whether it’s grey clouds overhead or a bright sunny day, but it’s not the case with cricket. More so than most sports, the playing conditions in cricket have a huge influence on matches, and game analysis is always beyond just the home ground effect. 

Why cricket is so particular?

A lot of it has to do with how the ball reacts off the surface of the wicket. A slow pitch, for example, will mean that the ball doesn’t have as much bounce and carry-through. A faster wicket will see the ball fly towards the crease, gripping less on the surface as it goes.

How the track plays can determine a high-scoring game with batters on top, or a game where they will have trouble defending their wicket.

Check conditions

The conditions of the humidity and temperature are also big factors in cricket. A scorching hot day that dries up the pitch could make it flat, dull and lacking bounce, but great for spin bowlers who can target the rough, dry patches.

Weather conditions can also influence bookmakers’ odds. Yes, it’s not as huge an influence as if, for example, in the Champions League final, Real Madrid’s reserve team took the field and we saw a dramatic rise in the bookies’ odds displayed on ClubSport. Nevertheless, bookmakers and professional tipsters take these factors into account.

Naturally, the home team wants the pitch prepared in a way that gives them as much of an advantage as possible. The more advantage that can be gained, just from setting up the wicket correctly in their favour, means that it could be taking away from the strengths of the visiting team.

Preparing a pitch favourable is intertwined with strategy. It’s not just the physical playing conditions, but how the team is going to approach the match in those physical conditions. That’s a huge advantage, compared to the visiting team that’s simply walking into something unknown.

Home comforts

There’s comfort in simply playing at a home ground. Home teams avoid all the hassle of travel for a match day and having to stay in hotels for long periods during a series, which keeps them away from their families.

Home comforts therefore count for a lot in cricket, as well as the wicket conditions. Players on a home team know their environment and will have a deeper understanding of any quirks that the pitch may have as well. They will know how it plays early in the day and later into the evening.

Home team batters are likely going to be able to read the ball more accurately, and their bowlers will know how to gain big advantages from the features of the wicket like cracks and undulations.

Training

A home team isn’t going to practise on a match-day wicket. But they can get out in the middle on practice strips that are set up the way that the one in use for the match will be. That’s a huge advantage in understanding the playing conditions that they are going to be stepping into.

There’s a deeper element to this as well. Players are raised playing in conditions familiar to them and become finely tuned to that. Playing conditions in theIPL for example are much different to the ones in Australia’s Big Bash league, which is why you’ll often see international players struggling abroad.

Partisan support

Then there is support. There is nothing like the weight of home support pushing on a team. Seeing a six sail over the boundary, celebrated by three-quarters of the stadium, is music to a batter’s ears.

A team will thrive off the feedback they get from a crowd. The home support is perhaps one of the biggest factors in weighing up a home favourite, and while it can’t carry a home team to victory in every match, it carries serious weight.

Series home advantage

The longer a series goes on, the more the positive attributes that a home team can gain are likely to grow. A series of five Test Matches for example that goes on for weeks likeThe Ashes between England and Australia, can take a lot out of the visiting side in having to face partisan crowd pitches not playing to their strengths for extended periods.