What is Dew factor in Cricket: How does dew affect cricket?

What is Dew factor in Cricket: The natural dew can have a massive impact on the result during a night fixture in the game of Cricket.

The ongoing 15th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has completed 10 of the 70 league matches. The one common occurrence before the start of each of these ten fixtures is captains of franchises opting to bowl first upon winning the Toss.

The reason being a likely appearance of dew as the match progresses, which has significant impact on the ultimate match result. In these ten fixtures so far, teams opting to chase after winning the Toss have won eight matches.

To brush it up, Dew refers to the natural occurrence of small droplets of water that usually form overnight on surfaces like blades of grass due to a process known as condensation.

The factor, can skew results in the chasing team’s favour during the day/night or night matches.

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What is Dew factor in Cricket

With most of the T20 matches likely to be night games generally due to financial reasons, the dew factor can seem to provide an unfair advantage to teams winning the Toss and deciding to field first.

One might have often heard the commentators comparing the Cricket ball to a ‘bar of soap’. Their reference is towards the dew, which makes the ball wet thereby making it challenging for the fielders, and most importantly for the bowlers who go through a hard task of trying to grip the ball. One might have often noticed fielders and bowlers trying to dry the ball after almost every delivery while on the field. It is the dew factor which makes them do so.

The wet ball leads the bowlers to err with their line and lengths. While an attempted yorker results in a low full toss or even a waist-height no-ball, a spinner may miss his intended length, thereby making him prone to leaking runs.

Be it the second-leg of the IPL in 2021, or the T20 World Cup in UAE last year, the dew provided a massive advantage to the chasing teams right till the end of the tournament.