Can you visualise the Indian Premier League being played behind closed doors, as some have suggested, and the thought seems to be gaining ground? Can you imagine the silence when a Chris Gayle launches a six or a Jasprit Bumrah castles another batsman or a Ravindra Jadeja throws down a stump from point and catches a batsman short of his ground?
It is tough, isn’t it? Since inception, IPL has been as much about the spectators who throng the venues as it has been about the players themselves. And, players like Virat Kohli and David Warner, Shikhar Dhawan and AB de Villiers have capitalised on the energy from the packed stands to raise their game. But this time, if indeed IPL is played in empty stadia, it will be different.
Former India captain Ajay Jadeja believes the players will be keen to get back on the pitch, crowd or no. “Like musicians and artists, the sportspersons will love getting an opportunity to play,” he says. “Of course, if there are spectators, the enjoyment is more, but in the current scenario, there can be no crowd in an IPL match and players will have to do what comes best to them.”
Steven Sylvester, a former Oxford Under-18s football player and a first class cricketer who has made psychology his vocation, believes that the cricketers will have to find a new reason, a new inner drive, to play their sport. “With entertaining the crowd not an option now, you have to have a deeper, more meaningful and more purposeful reason than just being an entertainer. Without such a reason, the quality of performances can decline,” he says.
Here’s the video of the the conversations — with Ajay Jadeja over a mobile phone call and with Steven Sylvester on a video conference call.
