IPL 2021: Playing At Neutral Venues Brings Brings The Strength Of The Squad To The Fore, Feels Virat Kohli

Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli has highlighted a unique factor that would make IPL 2021 highly interesting. Virat Kohli would be in action in the season opener against the Mumbai Indians on Friday at the Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The 32-year old believes that lack of home advantage could make the edition highly entertaining.

The BCCI has selected six venues for IPL 2021 in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai. Like IPL 2020, the 14th edition would also have no teams holding the home advantage as all matches would be in neutral venues. The tournament starts on the 9th of April and extends to the 30th of May, with 60 games being contested.

Virat Kohli conceded that it’s good to be back in India and felt that it’s highly beneficial that no franchise has the home advantage since only then, the squad’s strength comes into the picture. The right-handed batsman thinks that it was the very factor that made the tournament competitive last year and all the teams were in contention for playoffs till the final game. Hence, Kohli expects the upcoming season to be the same.

“The good thing is that we are back in India and one more positive thing about this edition like last year is that there is no home advantage. Everyone is playing at neutral venues and the strength of your squad really comes to the fore. This is precisely why last IPL was competitive and until about the last 3-4 games, everyone was in the reckoning to qualify [for the playoffs] which I think is great for the tournament. The viewership went through the roof which I expect to be the case this time around as well. The 2021 tournament is going to be competitive,” Kohli said as quoted by Times of India.

The fans are going to miss watching us play: Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli also said that the feeling of playing at the Chinnaswamy Stadium is electric and believes that the fans are going to miss watching them play. Nevertheless, IPL’s highest run-getter understands the time they are living in now.

“There is nothing quite like playing at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in front of your home crowd. I understand and agree with that. Obviously, the fans are going to miss watching us play — such is the time that we in right now,” he added.

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