Royal Challengers Bengaluru pacer Josh Hazlewood has ranked stadiums across India and has placed their home ground at the top, while shockingly placing the MA Chidambaram Stadium in the bottommost position.
RCB paceman Josh Hazlewood has been an exceptional performer for them in the IPL and has slowly gained supreme form ever since his return to the latest edition of the IPL after being ruled out of the initial matches with an injury.
India is one of the nations that have several cricket venues with international infrastructure, and it facilitates the hosting of IPL games as well. Several venues like the ACA Stadium in Guwahati and the HPCA Stadium in Dharamshala have been used in the IPL despite it not being the original home ground for any of the franchises.
Josh Hazlewood has named MS Dhoni’s CSK’s home stadium as the worst venue in India
Josh Hazlewood, the seasoned Australian star, has been a part of the IPL for many seasons now and has played for the Chennai Super Kings as well before he moved to the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, where he got his first breakthrough as the lead pacer in the powerplay as well as the death.
While asked to pick out a blind ranking of the stadiums across India, Hazlewood went on to pick MS Dhoni’s franchise Chennai Super Kings’ home ground at the MA Chidambaram Stadium as the worst venue in India.
When asked about the MA Chidambaram Stadium, which was, before this season, considered a bowling paradise, but mostly facilitated spinners, he ranked it last on his list of stadiums in India.
Josh Hazlewood picks Chinnaswamy as the best venue in India
Further continuing in this chat, where he kept on ranking venues as per his experience, Hazlewood named his current team, RCB’s home venue, the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, as one of his favourite venues.
The home ground to the Royal Challengers has been a paradise for batters over the years, despite which Josh has had a promising record for them at this venue. He has picked up many wickets and has benefited from the minimum amount of bounce offered by the Deccan soil.
However, the last venue where he picked four wickets in the last game against the Delhi Capitals at their home ground of the Arun Jaitley Stadium was listed in the ninth spot in the list of stadiums. Though originally, the ground does not offer any amount of success for pacers.
Why is Josh Hazlewood picking batting-friendly grounds as his favourite venues in India?
When asked to name his best blind stadiums in India, Josh Hazlewood picked M Chinnaswamy Stadium, the Narendra Modi Stadium, and the Wankhede Stadium as his top three grounds in India.
However, what seems shocking is that the Chinnaswamy is one of the highest six-hitting arenas in the nation, the Wankhede is one of the highest scoring grounds in the nation, and lastly, the Narendra Modi Stadium, where scores greater than 200 have also been very tough to defend.
Despite all these facts, Hazlewood cited these stadiums as his top three, while the pace-friendly tracks of the Eden Gardens, Ekana Stadium, and Dharamshala have been named much later in the list.
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