Cricket: The pandemic’s impact on performance

The pandemic will affect extroverts like Virat Kohli’s performance, while introverts are likely to thrive

Virat Kohli loves a crowd and will pick a fight with rival fans to motivate himself

Jack Riewoldt was feeling flat after the Tigers’ first game in a stadium without a crowd. “It’s not footy as we’d love it to be, but I suppose it’s better than nothing,” he concluded.

Paris Saint-Germain’s Ander Herrera was a little more concise about the absence of fans after his team’s recent loss to Bayern Munich in the European Champions League final.

“It’s shit,” he said.

The Spanish born-star added: “Football without fans is nothing.”

Psychologists believe the personalities of players has a curious impact on performance at a time like this. Extroverts will suffer without a crowd, introverts thrive. The middle will hold, but the high-pressure performers may struggle because the moment is diminished.

Steve Smith said before the Australian team’s plane took off for the UK that he was not sure he would find the same level of motivation if the crowd was not continually baying for his blood.

Virat Kohli is a player and a captain who actively eggs on crowds. He needs noise of any kind. If the audience isn’t Indian, he will pick a fight with the locals to get himself going. The Australians eventually learned not to engage when he was in such a mood.

Kohli also faces the prospect of being separated from his wife, who is due to give birth to their first child in January. The couple are close, he is a modern man and the situation is difficult.

David Warner is cut from a similar cloth and last year flew his wife Candice to England, where she gave birth to their third child during the Ashes.

Australian bowler Kane Richardson revealed on Tuesday he would not play in this month’s IPL, passing up an $800,000 contract to be in Australia for the birth of his first child.

Bachar Houli missed the start of the AFL season to be with his mother, who was in intensive care with coronavirus, Gary Ablett Jr missed more games to be with a sick son.

In India there is controversy over Chennai Super Kings star Suresh Raina’s decision to return home and withdraw from the tournament. Some thought it was because a dozen or so of the CSK contingent tested positive to the virus over the weekend. Some because he could not stand the isolation of living locked in for the next three months.

At home, however, Raina’s family was in crisis. His uncle had been killed by home invaders at their Pathankot home, his aunt was in a serious condition and his cousins also injured.

CSK owner N Srinivasan proved a man of curious priorities when asked about the player who left 10 days after the franchises arrived in the UAE, where the tournament will be played.

“The season has not begun yet and Raina will certainly realise what he is missing and certainly all the money he is going to lose,” Srinivasan said.

For all these people, playing cricket in the time of COVID-19 will exacerbate the impact of character traits.

Cricket coach and psychology major Paddy Upton believes the pandemic will affect teams and individuals during the IPL.

“We’ll see it on an individual level, we’ll see maybe some superstar players not delivering anything and some lesser-known mid-range players shooting the lights out and a lot of that is going to boil down to the mental state the players arrive at the game in,” Upton said in a video interview with ESPN Cricinfo.

“Some of the things we know during this lockdown period not only for athletes but for everyone, the introverts have been able to cope much better because they are insular, the extroverts have struggled a lot more.

“Athletes who are internally driven, who find the motivation themselves, they’re going to be fine, they’re going to do well. Your typical confidence player who looks for motivation, inspiration or validation, they’re really going to struggle.

“Your optimists are going to do a hell of a lot better, your pessimists are going to struggle. It’s random how many introverts, internally driven optimists you have in your tea. They are going to do well.”

Upton says teams need to be especially aware of the risk-averse, fear-based, pessimistic types who struggle in isolation without external validation or stimulation.

He says big-game players may also go missing and Kohli could be one who is absent without crowds.

Upton claimed score blowouts in all the football codes were part of a pattern and predicted “really bizarre results”.

“We are going to see massive gaps open between these teams,” he said.

“We’ve seen it in the Champions League football quarterfinal between Barcelona and Bayern Munich, two teams neck-and-neck, it was Barcelona’s worst loss in eight years; 8-2. We’ve seen it in Australia in the NRL and the AFL, we’ve seen teams who were neck-and-neck and now there’s a massive difference now in those teams where teams are pulling way ahead and others way behind.”

As for Raina, he observed that “whatever he is going home for is more significant than the large amounts of money he knows he is missing”.