IPL 2020 will be a festival of joy, says Kohli

This season's Indian Premier League (IPL) will be played out in empty stadiums, at least for now, and while Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli admitted that it might feel strange, he put things in perspective by saying that they will be playing for the love of the game.

And while they will miss the crowd, Kohli said that this season's Indian Premier League, which begins on Saturday, will bring some joy to people during these unprecedented times.

"Of course, it is going to be a strange feeling. I won't deny that, we are going to walk out feeling different to what we have in the past," Kohli said during a virtual press conference on Thursday.

"At the end of the day, you understand why you play this sport, and you started playing for the love of it. And now you have a chance to present or represent that love when the whole country is watching and the whole world is watching. And that will bring a lot of joy to the people. So, as long as we are playing for the right reasons, and we are playing for the essence of why we started playing this sport, I think all the external factors become irrelevant. Crowds are an amazing part of any sport but that is not what you play for, eventually. You play for the right reasons which is to play as a team, play for the love of this game, to play passionately together and the crowd is a part of your journey when they are watching you. So, our core reason will remain organic and remain pretty similar from when we all started playing as kids. But this time around, we have an opportunity to bring joy to so many other people. And from that point of view, I can only say one thing that our intensity levels and our passion will not drop because there are no crowds. There's a larger reason for why this is happening and we are surely going to stay true to that," he added.

The Indian captain also said that teams have come to accept the new normal of living and playing in a bio-bubble.

"We all have become more accepting of the situation around us. I think acceptance is the biggest change I've experienced. And even in this bio-bubble, the first time that we spoke, the thing that we discussed was to be appreciative of the things that are in front of you. It is very easy to think of things that we are not able to do at this moment. But we have accepted that this is what we need to do, this is what we are part of, this bio-bubble, these are the things we can afford to do. And I think all of us have become relaxed in this environment now because of that acceptance," said the 31-year-old.