NEW DELHI: Some Indian Premier League (IPL) teams have begun preparations for the 2026 season. Shubman Gill, having missed out on the T20 World Cup, has joined his Gujarat Titans teammates. So has Rajasthan Royals’ Vaibhav Sooryavanshi after his heroics in the U-19 World Cup.What is peculiar, however, is the choice of venues these, and other, teams made for their pre-season camps. The Delhi Capitals travelled to Hyderabad. The Kolkata Knight Riders were at Shivaji Park in Mumbai. The Rajasthan Royals are at their Academy in Talegaon, Nagpur. The Royal Challengers Bengaluru were stationed at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. The Punjab Kings, bafflingly, held their training camp at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
The rest of the teams have not begun their training for the 19th edition of the IPL. Mumbai Indians players currently not involved in the T20 World Cup and the Ranji Trophy final are expected to start with the DY Patil T20 Tournament.It is unfathomable that the IPL franchises could not find suitable training facilities in their own city or state. Even if we account for some venues being reserved for the T20 World Cup, it is hard to explain how Gujarat Titans, for example, could not find facilities in Baroda, Saurashtra or Surat. Or how PBKS couldn’t set camp in Mullanpur, Mohali or Dharamsala. Similarly, DC had potential options like the GMR Aerocity Ground or Palam, which BCCI uses for its own tournaments.This is equivalent to Londoners Arsenal going to Manchester United’s Carrington complex to prepare for the English Premier League season.At a time when the continued objective for the IPL franchises should be to grow the league, stay connected with their home fans and build team culture, the last thing you do is fly away hundreds of kilometres.With the IPL 2026 nearly four weeks away, this is the perfect juncture for franchises to start doing their groundwork. Let the fans trickle in and make some noise. All things considered, a cricket fan in Australia, for example, knows well in advance where their respective Big Bash League team will play and some of the more enthusiastic ones would arrive in droves even for the practice sessions.Instead, the IPL franchises and the powers that be are alienating their supporter base even further. How does it even augur well for the IPL as a brand that its teams are deciding to practice tens of thousands of kilometres away instead of having a fixed footing in the city they call home?This also comes at a time when some IPL franchises don’t even have a confirmed home base for when the season gets underway in the last week of March. As TimesofIndia.com reported, defending champions RCB have been asked to “exhaust other options first” before considering DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai as home.While not yet officially confirmed, it took weeks of jostling for the Rajasthan Royals to agree to host four of their home games in Jaipur and the rest in Guwahati.Besides them, the Punjab Kings have regularly played their home games in New Chandigarh and Dharamsala. The Delhi Capitals have called both Visakhapatnam and Delhi ‘home’ in a single IPL season.The entire idea of franchises playing at two different venues as ‘home’ is disrespectful to the original city. It negates the prospect of fan engagement, something that, evidently, is starting with the training sessions themselves.KKR mentor Dwayne Bravo stressed the importance of fans last season as controversy erupted over franchises not getting favourable pitches.
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Should IPL franchises conduct their pre-season camps in their home cities?
“What helps with the home advantage is the fans. I think that is more important than how the pitch plays. I can’t really comment much on the pitches but once the fans enter the game, cheer us on, that makes a difference,” Bravo had said.Former India player Aakash Chopra concurred. “Home advantage is real, and that comes in only two forms: one is the surface that you choose and the second is the crowd support that is there. Other than that, it’s an away game.”However, if franchises continue to treat cities as interchangeable pit stops, the IPL risks becoming a travelling spectacle with no real home.
