The thirteenth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been shifted to UAE as there were a huge number of COVID-19 cases in India. Even though the venue has changed, the entire tournament is likely to be played in empty stadiums. Thus, the lack of crowd buzz will be a challenge for the experienced players according to the newly appointed head coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Simon Katich.

As the experienced players are prone to playing in stadiums where they could hardly hear each other, the empty stadiums can be a demotivating factor. On the other hand, this will help the youngsters who will not be under the pressure of the thousands of fans cheering for their sides.

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Katich told RCB TV, "Personally, I think some of the younger players actually enjoy the fact that there will be little less pressure with less people at the ground creating all that noise and distraction."

"It will be more of a challenge for some of the older guys that are used to the buzz of the crowd and getting the adrenaline going. But I think there will still be a lot of motivation within our squad to go out and perform well," he added.

Katich also talked about bringing players back in the right frame of mind after a five-month-long layoff. The RCB management has a three-week process to get the players into match mode mentally.

He said, "The process has started in the last few months. The (coaching) staff has started working to prepare the players mentally. We've had a number of zoom sessions with a number of young players to start preparing them on what to expect from this IPL."

"So from that point of view, now the cricket side of things take over where they start preparing and training. So we can use this window knowing that the three weeks is the bare minimum that we need given that there has been such a long layoff. It's sort of a gradual process in the build up," he added.

(Source: RCB TV)