Anatomy of an IPL fan: cricketers, experts and fans examine why the game matters to them
In the beginning of May, the Indian Premier League (IPL) juggernaut, with more than two-thirds of the fixtures completed, came to an abrupt halt. Stadium lights dimmed. Commentary boxes fell silent. With military tensions mounting between India and Pakistan, the fate of the 18th edition of the franchise-based cricket league hung in the balance. Then a few days later, just as suddenly, the switch was flipped back on. Players flew out, others flew in. Some teams 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 culmination of years of relentless pursuit, near misses, and unyielding passion. With that, an electrifying season came to an emotional close. According to Ormax Media’s 2024 sports report, cricket commands 612 million viewers in India. Of these, 86 million are urban IPL franchise loyalists. Google Trends show IPL-related searches topping charts for eight consecutive weeks, barring the brief pause mid-May. In the final week alone, ‘PBKS vs RCB’ clocked over 10 million searches; ‘MI vs GT’ had a search volume of 5 million. This isn’t just consumption, it’s commitment. This is what it means when a game becomes something more than just a game. Fans cheer before the start of the Indian Premier League final at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, June 3, 2025. | Photo Credit: AP The gulf between domestic cricket and the IPL isn’t as wide as it seems. The skill, the level of competition, even the pressure, it’s all there. What changes is the spotlight. “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, where even silence can be political, the noise around cricket matters. And the IPL, more than any other format of cricket, understands how to dial it up. Test vs. T20 Tim Wigmore’s Test Cricket: A History offers a sweeping chronicle of a format long seen as cricket’s ultimate test — of skill, temperament, and endurance. But while Wigmore looks back at the grandeur and grit of the red-ball format, the sport has surged ahead. If Test cricket is its pinnacle, then T20, especially in its most commercial, 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 action. The IPL, as an extension of this format, has amplified that shift, injecting staggering money, youthful energy, and mass entertainment into the game’s bloodstream. Wigmore portrays Test cricket as both archaic and alluring. He raises a pressing question: can this demanding, five-day format coexist with the electric thrill of T20, especially in its glossy franchise form? The IPL hasn’t killed Test cricket, it has, in fact, made its survival more urgent. In challenging Test cricket to prove its worth, the IPL has become an unlikely mirror: a rival that paradoxically keeps the older format alive. Today’s aggressive, fast-paced batsmen may light up the IPL, but it’s Test cricket that teaches them the true grammar of the game. The IPL may be where they shine, but Test cricket is where they are forged, 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 studies sports communication and the sociology of sports, particularly public memory and media perception of disability. “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 conscious effort to build 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 players 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 comedian Danish Sait, who plays RCB’s irreverent mascot Mr. Nags, defeat feels personal. “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 among the league’s great enigmas — hugely popular despite never winning the title until this season. The 2024 Ormax report pegs it at 13.3 million fans, just 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 adds. For years, they came agonisingly close — losing the final in 2009, 2011 and 2016, and pulling off a dramatic comeback in 2024 only to stumble in the playoffs. One of the most consistent teams, RCB made the playoffs five times in the last six seasons. It’s a cruel irony. A team that boasted T20 swashbucklers such as Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers somehow never managed to translate their talent into silverware. Having won nearly every other cricketing…