5 things we miss dearly in IPL 2016

Full houses

With matches moving out of Wankhede and CSK suspended, two bastions have disappeared for the IPL. Add to that the inevitable cricket-exhaustion on the rise and we are left with stadiums that are not even full. Most matches have witnessed a lot of empty seats, whether it was a weekday or a weekend.

There was a time when finding tickets for IPL games was a tough proposition especially on weekends. The Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore has still retained its flavour thanks to its star-studded home team (which isn’t really doing that great) and its Captain Fantastic, Virat Kohli.

Other venues have seen patchy turnouts. It doesn’t help that the start to this year’s IPL was dotted with one-sided games. By 16th of May with a few matches still to go, we have seen close to a dozen matches won with either 4 overs remaining or by more than 30 runs. Some of those wins have been enormous.

Spectators want to watch closer matches but those haven’t conspired. While some like Kohli and AB de Villiers have lived up to their billing, some players like Chris Gayle and MS Dhoni haven’t turned up. Injuries to players like Lasith Malinga hasn’t helped the cause either.