The revamped portion of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League will provide a “ levelled the playing field” for all countries in the ICC World T20, Australia and Royal Challengers Bangalore’s all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has said.
He has said that no side will have home advantage as the T20 World Cup is scheduled to be played right after the conclusion of the IPL, where many international stars will feature for their IPL franchises and gain adequate acclimatisation.
“The tournament being in UAE probably levels the playing field a little bit. Probably makes it a little bit easier for there not to be as much of a home ground advantage. For the IPL to be there to have a lot of international players that are potentially going to be in that World Cup over there playing, I think it has probably levelled the playing field a fair bit,” Maxwell said to ICC-Cricket.com.
Australia have struggled to play and compete in spin-friendly conditions in the recent past and Maxwell has suggested that the recent experience of playing in the IPL will do “wonders” for their batsmen. He has put big faith in Australian bowlers and said that they come firing all their cylinders right from the word go in in the big global event.
“The fact we’ve got a lot of guys going over for the IPL as a preparation, get a few games in those conditions, it’s going to do wonders for our batters. Our bowlers are going to be up and firing by the time the tournament starts. I can assure you everyone is looking forward to hitting the ground running over there,” Maxwell added.
Maxwell forms an important part of the Royal Challengers set up in the upcoming IPL and the skipper Virat Kohli would be banking on him to form a dominating middle-order in the company of AB de Villiers.