The IPL season is back yet again in full vigour and intensity with its day/night matches to take place for 52 consecutive nights. What this also means is that apart from the contest which involves bat and a ball, the droplets of the infamous dew would also mark its presence and at times influence match results.
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While its impact would be very well visible at some match venues, it might not really be enough to impact the outcome of matches at other places. If the teams are fortunate enough, this third element might even stay away from the ground and the players.
With just nine matches into the ongoing season, the dew has already started to negatively affect the players, especially the bowlers who are defending their team’s totals later in the night.
What is Dew in Cricket?
For those unaware, dew refers to the droplets of water formed at the night on the surface of objects exposed to the sky. Objects like blades of grass lose heat to the sky by radiation, and their temperature is resultantly cooled down.
This further reduces the temperature of air in its vicinity (which contains humidity), and which makes the water vapour condense out of air onto the surface, in the form of water droplets.
With the grass resultantly getting wet, it becomes difficult for the bowler to grip the ball, and bowl at the length he/she wishes to at the batter. Also, it might affect a fast bowler’s run-up, and increase the risk of injury due to a slip-up.
How does Dew Affect Cricket Matches?
The dew tends to get heavier as time passes by in the night, handing the teams defending totals a huge disadvantage. While the spinners might find the ball difficult to grip, turn, and land it at the desired lengths, a pacer might find in challenging to, for instance nail a Yorker, which in most cases turns into a Full Toss or a waist-height No-Ball.
Recently, during the LSG versus DC IPL 2023 match at Lucknow, the considerable amount of dew had meant that pacer Mark Wood struggled to land the deliveries at the desired length and had to even shorten his run-up, so that he doesn’t slip at the time of delivery stride.
“You could see the dew on the grass and it affected me. I fall even at the best of times. We have trained here, so we knew dew was going to be a factor. I was trying to keep my strides short (due to the wet outfield). Trained here before during practice games, but the intensity was different, not as much as it was tonight. Was worried a bit about slipping but I will try to shrug that off next time,” remarked Wood on the dew factor at the Lucknow Stadium last week.
