World’s premier T20 franchise tournament, Indian Premier League was slated to be organised on 29th March 2020. However, due to the worldwide spread of deadly Coronavirus, it got suspended till 15th April, followed by an indefinite period of suspension.
However, with the nation once again, slowly coming back to its feet, there have been a lot of talks surfacing across the world regarding the IPL 2020, to be organised in the September-October window.
As per the latest reports, it has been learnt that Indian Premier League will be organised in September and hence, the World Cup 2020 will be further suspended to a later date.
While most of the cricket pundits have given a thumps-up to it, a few aren’t in favour of the resumption of sporting activities keeping in mind daily increase in the number of Coronavirus cases.
Recently, India’s left-handed opener, Shikhar Dhawan gave his viewpoint on the same during a web-chat with Sri Lanka’s all-rounder, Angelo Mathews, saying that IPL will bring a lot of positivity across the country amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic.
“Hopefully, the IPL will take place. It’ll be good if it happens… of course, by taking care of all the security and all the things against (sic) corona. Regarding that, we have to be very, very careful,” Dhawan said.
“It should happen because it’s good for us (India). It brings (in) a lot of positivity that spreads across the world. Right now, it’s all about corona news. It’s very important that some sporting activity takes place and then the environment is going to change, the mood is going to change. (The) IPL (finally) happening will have a huge impact,” he added.
While cricket might get underway in a couple of months, it won’t be the same as before. The matches will be organised in closed doors as the biggest ambassadors of the game, the fans won’t be there in the stadium to cheer their team. Asked if it would have an impact on the game, Dhawan said,
“Obviously, we are going to miss playing in front of huge crowds if tournaments take place behind closed doors, because fans bring their own charm and aura. The fans bring a huge energy to the stadium. We’re going to miss it. But at the same time it will be an opportunity (to play) as we have been sitting in our homes for two-three months now,“
“Whether spectators are there are not, a professional cricketer knows that he has to do his job. So we have to do our job, but at the same time we’re going to miss the crowd as well,” the 34-year-old said.
Shikhar Dhawan has been one of the most prolific batsmen in India’s limited over’s cricket. Though, his performance in the shortest format has seen a dip, with the opener failing to give powerful starts in the power play overs. With the World Cup 2020 coming next year, the Southpaw would look to pile as many runs in the IPL and cement his place India’s T20 side.
Dhawan has represented India in 34 Tests, 136 ODIs and 61 T20 internationals so far. He has scored 5688 runs in one-day internationals at an average of 45.1 and a strike rate of 94.
