What is dew in cricket and how does it affect the game?

With day/night matches scheduled for 52 straight nights, the IPL season is back in full force and ferocity. This implies that in addition to the game of bat and ball, the dew droplets would also be present and occasionally affect match outcomes. So what is dew in cricket and how does it make a change in the game.

Even though its effects would be obvious at some match venues, they might not be sufficient to affect the results of matches at other locations. If the teams are lucky, this third component might even avoid the playing surface and the players.

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Nine games into the current season, and the dew has already begun to significantly impact the players, especially the bowlers who will later that night be defending their team’s totals.

Dew in cricket

For those who don’t know, dew is the term for the water droplets that accumulate at night on the surfaces of objects that are exposed to the sky. By radiating heat, objects like grass blades lose heat to the atmosphere, which causes their temperature to drop.

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This causes the humidity-containing air in the area to cool even more, which causes the water vapor in the air to condense onto the surface as droplets.

It becomes more difficult for the bowler to hold the ball and throw at the batter at the desired length as a result of the grass becoming wet. Additionally, it might influence a fast bowler’s run-up and raise the possibility of harm from a slip-up.

Dew in night matches

The teams defending totals are at a severe disadvantage because the dew tends to get heavier as the night goes on. A pacer may find it tough to, for example, nail a yorker, which typically results in a full toss or a waist-height no-ball, while spinners may find it challenging to grip, turn, and land the ball at the correct lengths.

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Recently, pacer Mark Wood found it difficult to land the deliveries at the correct length and had to even decrease his run-up so that he doesn’t fall at the time of delivery stride during the LSG versus DC IPL 2023 match at Lucknow due to the significant amount of dew.