In the starting of May, the Indian Premier League (IPL) juggernaut, with greater than two-thirds of the fixtures accomplished, got here to an abrupt halt. Stadium lights dimmed. Commentary packing containers fell silent. With navy tensions mounting between India and Pakistan, the destiny of the 18th version of the franchise-based cricket league hung in the steadiness.
Then a number of days later, simply as all of the sudden, the change was flipped again on. Players flew out, others flew in. Some groups rose. Others faltered. But the pulse of the IPL? Steady. Loud. Unrelenting. Last week, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) clinched their first-ever IPL title. With tears in his eyes, Virat Kohli lifted the elusive trophy, in a end result of years of relentless pursuit, close to misses, and unyielding ardour. With that, an electrifying season got here to an emotional shut.
According to Ormax Media’s 2024 sports activities report, cricket instructions 612 million viewers in India. Of these, 86 million are city IPL franchise loyalists. Google Trends present IPL-related searches topping charts for eight consecutive weeks, barring the transient pause mid-May. In the closing week alone, ‘PBKS vs RCB’ clocked over 10 million searches; ‘MI vs GT’ had a search quantity of 5 million. This isn’t simply consumption, it’s dedication. This is what it means when a game turns into one thing greater than only a game.
Fans cheer earlier than the begin of the Indian Premier League closing at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, June 3, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
AP
The gulf between home cricket and the IPL isn’t as extensive because it appears. The talent, the stage of competitors, even the strain, it’s all there. What modifications is the highlight. “There’s not much of a difference in the game itself,” says Abhishek Desai of the Gujarat Cricket Association. “It’s all about the exposure — playing alongside the world’s best. And the IPL is louder, flashier, and that makes everything feel bigger.”
In India, the place even silence could be political, the noise round cricket matters. And the IPL, greater than another format of cricket, understands how to dial it up.
Test vs. T20
Tim Wigmore’s Test Cricket: A History gives a sweeping chronicle of a format lengthy seen as cricket’s final check — of talent, temperament, and endurance. But whereas Wigmore appears again at the grandeur and grit of the red-ball format, the sport has surged forward. If Test cricket is its pinnacle, then T20, particularly in its most industrial, glamorous avatar as the Indian Premier League, has redefined its base.
T20 has reshaped cricket’s priorities, drawing new audiences with its three-hour bursts of motion. The IPL, as an extension of this format, has amplified that shift, injecting staggering cash, youthful vitality, and mass leisure into the game’s bloodstream. Wigmore portrays Test cricket as each archaic and alluring. He raises a urgent query: can this demanding, five-day format coexist with the electrical thrill of T20, particularly in its shiny franchise kind?
The IPL hasn’t killed Test cricket, it has, the truth is, made its survival extra pressing. In difficult Test cricket to show its price, the IPL has grow to be an unlikely mirror: a rival that paradoxically retains the older format alive. Today’s aggressive, fast-paced batsmen could gentle up the IPL, but it surely’s Test cricket that teaches them the true grammar of the game. The IPL could also be the place they shine, however Test cricket is the place they’re solid, say experts.
Sport as story
“The IPL is a McDonaldisation of sport, which is a concept frequently spoken of by sports sociologists,” says Aman Misra, a Ph.D candidate at the University of Tennessee. He research sports activities communication and the sociology of sports activities, notably public reminiscence and media notion of incapacity. “It’s tightly packaged, highly produced, and modelled on western templates. To make it work, they have to start creating rivalries, they have to manufacture narratives around wins and losses.”
There is a acutely aware effort to construct parasocial relationships, thinks Misra. “The best way to understand it is that even if the league is ‘constructed’, the emotions it sparks are real. Sports reflects society,” he says.
This emotional mirroring touches fans and gamers alike. Gujarat Titans’ spinner Sai Kishore understands it. “It’s not bizarre to me. It means the team is theirs, too. They feel the wins, and they feel the losses,” he says.
For comic Danish Sait, who performs RCB’s irreverent mascot Mr. Nags, defeat feels private. “You travel with the team, spend time with the players. When they lose, it hurts. But the business side still rolls on, so you keep the performance on. Even my valet tells me, ‘Sir, please come back with the trophy’. I don’t even play! But that’s the magic of sport. It makes you one of them,” he says.
“When I got the opportunity 11 years ago to be the bridge between fans and cricketers, the goal was to humanise the players — to bring them closer. Back then, cricket was all about hero worship, the constant David vs. Goliath narrative. But no one was showing them as real people, just like us, who love the game and have a sense of humour. I really enjoyed speaking the language fans speak and creating something they could connect with.”Danish SaitComedian and RCB mascot
RCB remained amongst the league’s nice enigmas — massively well-liked regardless of by no means profitable the title till this season. The 2024 Ormax report pegs it at 13.3 million fans, simply behind five-time winners Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians.
“Everybody loves an underdog,” says screenwriter Navjot Gulati. “RCB’s arc is full of drama, chaos, and heartbreak,” he provides. For years, they got here agonisingly shut — shedding the closing in 2009, 2011 and 2016, and pulling off a dramatic comeback in 2024 solely to stumble in the playoffs. One of the most constant groups, RCB made the playoffs 5 instances in the final six seasons.
It’s a merciless irony. A crew that boasted T20 swashbucklers akin to Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers in some way by no means managed to translate their expertise into silverware. Having gained almost each different cricketing honour, Kohli bore the weight of this one for years. Which is why, Gulati says, “It won’t just be their core fans who’ll celebrate. I think a lot of people will celebrate just because there’s a story there.”
For Mumbai Indians fan Dhruv Shah, co-founder of Funcho Entertainment, a comedy content material channel, the enchantment lies in sport as an outlet. “Most of us have aggressive, competitive sides, but life gets in the way. The IPL lets us win by proxy. Cricket allows us to win.”
Fandom and identification
‘Sports fandom taps into a deeply human need to belong.’
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images
The emotion isn’t superficial. It cuts deep. Therapist Meghna Singhal, a Ph.D in scientific psychology, maps fan grief to the DABDA mannequin: denial, anger, bargaining, melancholy, acceptance. “Fans genuinely grieve. At first, it’s ‘We didn’t deserve to lose’; then, ‘The umpiring was biased’; followed by ‘If only we bowled that guy’; then comes a week of sadness; and finally, ‘It was still a great season’.”
Cricket is a life marker for actor Nakuul Mehta. His fandom is a dream deferred. “Like most children in India, I once dreamt of playing for the country. But at some point, you realise your ambition outweighs your talent. So you live that dream through your heroes. When they win, you soar. When they lose, it stings, it feels personal.”
He credit the IPL administration with constructing a fandom few noticed coming. “When my team loses, it hurts because I lose the right to defend them. But when they win, it feels worth it, like all those years of standing by them finally paid off.”
Singhal provides that crew loyalty anchors private identification. “Sports fandom taps into a deeply human need to belong. When we support a Mumbai or Gujarat, we’re anchoring ourselves to a shared identity,” she says. Psychology calls this the social identification concept, in accordance to Singhal. “Our sense of self is shaped by the group we belong to.”
Meanwhile, veteran sports activities editor Suresh Menon believes fans are outsourcing emotion. “You look at Kohli and think, ‘Thank God I don’t have to do all that.’ You’ve nominated him to win on your behalf.” He calls it coquette psychology. “Sport is fundamentally meaningless. So we impose meaning, glory, sacrifice, heartbreak. It’s got a story. It’s got memories.”
“When India beat England for the first time — whether at home in 1952 or away in 1971 — it felt like getting our own back on the colonisers. Cricket can mean many things: a way to assert nationhood, to express identity. During the Depression, Don Bradman became a towering figure in Australian cricket, someone the nation could rally around, just like we did with Tendulkar. He didn’t just play for us; he stood in for us. That kind of identification with a sporting hero runs deep. And then there’s the thrill, the unpredictability, the drama, the not knowing how it will end. That’s what pulls fans in, even those who don’t follow every match.”Suresh MenonEditor and columnist
Media arms of franchises are pleased to add to the storybuilding. “International cricket doesn’t need to build characters,” Menon notes. “But IPL franchises have private players. So you get social media teams building emotional hooks. Personalities are amped up. Narratives are fed.”
Misra agrees. “Sport has always been likened to war to a certain extent. Journalists love conflicts, rivalries, storylines. We’re not telling Indian audiences what to think, we’re telling them how to think. We are creating meaning through media logic. So even if you’re not playing, you start to carry this conflict emotionally, as though it’s yours.”
That is the intention with which comic Sait started donning the function of RCB’s mascot. “When I got the opportunity 11 years ago to be the bridge between fans and cricketers, the goal was to humanise the players. Back then, cricket was all about hero worship. I really enjoyed speaking the language fans speak and creating something they could connect with,” he says.
Winning by proxy
For many sporting fans, crew loyalty anchors private identification.
| Photo Credit:
ANI
That effort to humanise gamers, to bridge the hole between icon and particular person, is echoed by gamers, too. Says Sai Kishore of the Gujarat Titans, “People in Gujarat feel deeply connected to the Titans. Most of us players aren’t even from here. But fans get that local flavour, just like Chennaiites do with Dhoni. That’s love.”
Kishore now calls Ahmedabad his second house. “The connection is real. The IPL is emotionally intense. When we lose, it’s not just about ‘moving on to the next one’. We feel it.”
In the finish, just one crew will get to elevate the trophy. But hundreds of thousands extra will really feel like they lifted it, too. Because when the IPL rolls into city, the nation doesn’t simply watch. It performs alongside, and for a short while, all they’re going to be saying is, “Ee Saala Cup Namdu” (this yr, the trophy is ours).
The author is a tradition, life-style and leisure journalist.
This article appeared in print in the June 8, 2025 version of The Hindu-Magazine. It was written earlier and up to date on June 4 after Royal Challengers Bengaluru gained the IPL trophy the earlier night. The article couldn’t embody particulars of a tragic stampede that occurred in Bengaluru on the night of June 4 throughout the victory celebration.
Published – June 12, 2025 01:29 pm IST
