West Bengal’s Kolkata [India] As a professional cricket player, Venkatesh Iyer, the vice captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders, plans to adapt to whatever is available and does not think that home turf should be prepared with certain pitches in mind. He did concede, however, that the reigning champs would benefit if Eden Gardens’ circumstances met their needs.

When Eden pitch creator Sujan Mukherjee turned down franchise captain Ajinkya Rahane’s plea to create spin-friendly tracks for the current Indian Premier League (IPL), the contentious discussion regarding home advantage vs a fighting strip got underway.

After the reigning champions’ main weapon, mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, was thrashed and clobbered during their 43-run loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the league’s season opener, the KKR captain made the statement.

Following KKR’s decisive 80-run victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Eden, Rahane’s deputy, Venkatesh, offered his thoughts on the home advantage against a tough field. As a cricket player, he said he thinks they should adapt to the circumstances, although he acknowledged that it would be better if they got what they wanted at Eden.

“We had excellent bowling. We made good advantage of the circumstances. We made good advantage of the pitch conditions. The pitch shouldn’t be like this or that, in my opinion; because we are professional cricket players, we will adapt. At the press conference after the game, Venkatesh said, “But sure, it will be good for us if we get the conditions we want in our home.”

After being put to the test by the Sunrisers, KKR’s motto for success was to adapt to the circumstances. Venkatesh and Rinku Singh took some time on the crease to change Hyderabad’s perspective of the chase after an exciting fifty from Angkrish Raghuvanshi.

Rinku and Venkatesh established a 91-run partnership in only 41 balls to push the hosts to 200/6, converting a doable ask for SRH into a difficult one. The team was struggling at 122/4 after 15 overs.

Deciphering his strategy, Venkatesh, who blazed his way to 60 from 29 deliveries, said that it is still possible to succeed by taking a few deliveries to build the mood rather than going all out from the first ball.

We learned that it’s not a simple pitch to simply go out there and hit by the signals that Ajinkya Rahane and Raghuvanshi delivered us during the time-out. You need to be patient. The ball was twisting and sticking a bit. According to Venkatesh, who was cited by ESPNcricinfo, “it was crucial that we take our time and learn what the pitch has to offer rather than just chewing a few balls.”

“Andre Russell, Rinku, and Ramandeep Singh are on the back-end, so I have that luxury. Even if I take a few balls, I know that our engine room can still destroy any bowling onslaught if I can cover it to some degree. Therefore, the strategy was to comprehend the pitch first, then respond appropriately,” he said.

Rinku and Venkatesh sped in the fifteenth over, batting at full power to increase the heat in Eden, demonstrating how effective the strategy was. The Sunrisers struggled in the powerplay and lost their top order without doing much damage to the hosts after leading KKR to a respectable 200/6.

Hyderabad needed a miracle to turn the tide of loss around, but that moment never came as they left at 120, losing by a resounding 80 runs.