IPL 2026: ‘We play at this place like away’ – DC coach’s explosive remark after home matches

Delhi Capitals (ANI Photo)

Delhi Capitals (DC) struggled throughout IPL 2026 at their home venue, the Arun Jaitley Stadium, but ended their home campaign on a winning note by defeating Rajasthan Royals on Sunday to keep their IPL 2026 playoff chances alive, albeit narrowly. However, DC’s dismal home record (five losses and two wins) this season was a major talking point during the post-match press conference, and head coach Hemang Badani had some stern words. After securing the win against RR, DC head coach Hemang Badani said, “We have stopped discussing the surface,” and as far as he is concerned, “we are playing at this venue like away.” For Badani, the contrast between the team’s performance at home and away was stark. “If you can split the season into two halves of what happened at home and what happened away, we had four wins in six away games and mainly struggled at home,” Badani noted in the post-match press conference. Five losses and just two wins at home this season makes Badani’s frustration justified. They once managed to chase down their 264 with seven balls to spare and were 75 in the very next match. With just two wins, this reflects an astonishing 71.4% home loss percentage – the second worst of the 10 teams in this edition of the IPL.

Here is the list of IPL 2026 home records of all teams:

TEAMHome StadiumsMatchesWinsLossNo resultsWin percentageRCBM. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru; Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium, Raipur761085.70%CSKM.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai642066.70%SRHRajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad642066.70%GTNarendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad642066.70%RRBarsapara Cricket Stadium, Guwahati; Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur633050.00%KKREden Gardens, Kolkata522150.00%PBKSMaharaja Yadavindra Singh PCA Stadium, New Chandigarh; HPCA Stadium, Dharamsala734042.90%MIWankhede Stadium, Mumbai624033.30%DCArun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi725028.60%LSGEkana Stadium, Lucknow615016.70%“Generally, you’d ideally look at the grass that’s available on the surface, the texture of the surface, the color of the surface. But every time we’ve come out here, we’ve had something very different. So it is what it is. We accept it and move on.” Badani explained that the three pitches used in Delhi for matches were inconsistent and were not used more than once. “One game we’re out at 60 (75), the next at 150, the next at 260. So we don’t know how to play consistently on a No. 4, No. 5 or No. 6 court. We’ve played on three surfaces and if you look at the numbers, they’re all over the place. That’s hard for you to prepare for.” Badani reflected on Sunday’s encounter that kept them alive in the play-off race, stressing that the surface played a key role in the look of the match. “Talking about this game, I think even if you look at their innings, they played 160 for 2 (after 14 overs) and then they barely ran out at the end – I think they got about 33 in the last six and we got (six more) wickets,” Badani said. “The same thing happened to us when we slowed down a little bit, but we were careful because we had (the goal) available. They had to set the goal and we were just trying to make a play because the ball started to turn. The ball (also) kept a little on the surface. It wasn’t easy to hit once the ball got old, so (we decided) to go deep but go hard at the end.” This question has been asked before and the DC head coach has been asked again: should the BCCI allow IPL teams to have control over their grounds and give them home advantage? Even cricket expert Sanjay Manjrekar also said that the IPL teams should have their say on how the pitch might behave during the season during the Sportstar podcast. For a team fighting to stay in the play-offs, Delhi’s unpredictable 22 yards proved to be the biggest challenge for Badani’s men.