VVS Laxman Confident That Absence Of Fans In The Stadium Will Not Impact The Quality Of Cricket In IPL 2020

VVS Laxman, former Indian batsman and Sunrisers Hyderabad mentor, has assured the fans that the quality of the contest in the upcoming edition of the IPL, will not plummet, adding that the fans will ‘really enjoy’ the competition even though there wouldn’t be any spectators on the ground.

Thee 13th edition of the cash-rich Indian Premier League is all set to take place in the United Arab Emirates between September 19-November 10 behind closed doors.

“I can assure all the fans of the game that they will really enjoy the competition even though there won’t be any crowd or any spectators on the ground. Don’t ever think that the energy or the quality of cricket will come down.” VVS Laxman said in a video posted by SRH’s official Twitter account.

With the tournament set to be played in three venues- Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah- Laxman is worried that the wickets might end up being on the slower side.

“Probably the wickets may be on the slower side but we have to just wait and see because we may just be surprised with the efforts put in by the ground staff. The outfield will be fantastic but the wickets are something that I hope will be well taken care of by the ground staff,” he added.

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‘It was a very intentional effort to have the youngsters’- VVS Laxman

Sunrisers Hyderabad opted for young Indian batsmen in the form of Priyam Garg, Virat Singh, and B Sandeep in the IPL auctions, something Laxman revealed was a clear strategy of the think-tank in order to bolster the middle-order- SRH’s Achilles heal in the past seasons.

“In the auction, it was a very intentional effort to have the youngsters. While they are youngsters, they are all the most prolific performers in domestic cricket. When you see the composition of our team, we had a lot of experienced players from both overseas and India,” VVS Laxman said.

“But when we look at the domestic players, we (were) required to strengthen our batting, especially our middle-order batting. So we went with the performer in the last couple of seasons,” he added.

Sunrisers had also opted to make changes to their support staff ahead of last years’ auction. They have roped in former IPL and World Cup-winning coach Trevor Bayliss instead of Tom Moody as the head-coach position, besides replacing Simon Helmot with former Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin for the assistant coach post.

“Trevor is one of the most successful coaches in world cricket; England won the World Cup for the first time under his coaching. I have always admired him and all the interactions I have had with him have been excellent – I learnt something with every interaction. He is cool and calm and also has the temperament of handling the best of teams and the best of players.” Laxman said.

“Brad Haddin is a hardcore competitor. He will definitely give 100 percent or probably more than 100 percent as the assistant coach.” he added.

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