The 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) finally kicked off yesterday. The match paid equal justice to the much-awaited day as arch-rivals Chennai Super Kings took on defending champions, Mumbai Indians.
Super Kings seemed the relatively weaker side on paper, however, captain cool MSD had many tricks up his sleeve as per managing his resources. Super Kings defeated the mighty Mumbai Indians by 5 wickets to begin their campaign.
The fans were just relieved by the fact that the IPL is taking place amidst the difficult situation caused by the pandemic. However, the overall setup made the fans feel a bit weird and take a trip down the memory lane to the good old times. Today we will list five things which fans missed in the opening game of IPL.
The stands filled up by cheering supporters!
Whenever the titans, CSK, and MI would clash, depending upon the location, the stadium would be filled by roaring voices. The M. A. Chidambaram stadium would e flooding with yellow or the Wankhede stadium would have turned into a blue sea. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case this year as the stadiums were empty due to the pandemic.
Especially for MI, their ‘MI Paltan’ was always considered as the 12th man for them. Mumbai Indians’ captain Rohit Sharma said, “We are used to people cheering for us but we knew that this was on the cards. Anyway, this is the new normal and I hope things get better soon.”
The crowd actually roaring and cheering!
It may sound pretty self-explanatory that we won’t listen to the crowd cheering like we always did. However, Star Sports may have added an insult to injury. In order to create a viewing experience, they added fake screams and cheers when any significant event would take place.
That obviously sounded extremely artificial and rather made a lot of people feel disconnected. Also, screams were added at wrong places which further frustrated the fans.
The celebration!
The fans are used to elated and hyped up celebration of their favourite cricketers who would high-five or hug each other after a significant event. That wasn’t the case due to the stringent social distancing protocols, as the cricketers were only allowed to fist-pump each other which really looked subdued.
The crowd and cricketers’ reaction!
Again to create a viewing experience, fans were connected virtually from their homes and their reactions were captured after a significant event. That again was considered a failure by the cricketing community.
Also, this time around, there aren’t iconic dugouts as players just sat on foldable chairs.
The opening ceremony and cheerleaders!
This issue has always been divisive as many people didn’t want them even before the pandemic. There was no opening ceremony this year around. There is obviously unnecessary funding required for the ceremony. Also, under such conditions having a ceremony will be a violation of stringent social distancing protocols.
The opening ceremony was cancelled last time as well by the Committee of Administrators (CoA). The allocated fund was donated to the families of CRPF personnel, who lost their lives in the Pulwama terror attack.
Also, for the first time ever, there weren’t any cheerleaders.
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