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The modern digital age has introduced many conveniences to help us, cricket. The internet has made it easier for people to watch international cricket leagues. Enjoying cricket matches on radio and television has become a thing of the past.
Yet, the digital frontiers have brought something else to change cricket as we know it. Simulated Reality Premier (SRL) League is a virtual simulation of cricket matches. Unlike real-life cricket, it’s possible to do SRL League matches even during the offseason.
But, before we understand what the SRL League is, we should understand the stages that lead to its creation.
Global Reach of Cricket
Unlike football or basketball, cricket matches may look tedious to see. Yet, it may shock people that cricket is the world’s second most popular sport. Cricket has about 2.5 billion fans, the highest number of sports fans numbers after football 3.5 billion.
Many cricket fans come from Commonwealth countries, such as Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Cricket also grows in popularity in places like Afghanistan and the Netherlands.
Cricket attributes its global spread thanks to the amount of former British colonies. Any place with a significant British presence guaranteed the existence of cricket clubs there.
Even after the United Kingdom lost its colonies, the popularity of cricket persisted. It’s quite easy to see the surreal passion for cricket in places like India and Pakistan. While sports like football are popular, only cricket has gained a much-venerated status.
The passion for cricket in both countries is so strong that India-Pakistan cricket rivalry has become legendary. People often refer to the rivalry as the El Clásico of cricket. Such a moniker is quite accurate, especially since millions of people always wait for such matches.
With millions of fans, it’s safe to say that cricket’s global influence and presence remain strong.
Famous Cricket Leagues
The popularity of cricket has caused the emergence of many world-class leagues. Each country with significant cricket popularity is guaranteed to have its leagues. Yet, certain leagues are far more global-reaching and famous than others.
IPL sits as the most-watched cricket league in the world. The league held its first season in 2008, and since then held 15 seasons. Each season sees 10 cricket teams from across India vie for a total prize of £5.38 million in 2023. IPL also received 32 million viewers in 2023, topping a 25.3 million record by Hotstar in the 2019 Cricket World Cup.
BBL holds the position as the second most popular cricket league after IPL. The Australian league features eight teams in every season. BBL often takes place during summer in Australia from December to February. In 2016/17, BBL and IPL became some of the most attended domestic sports leagues.
SRL Cricket as an Alternative
Waiting for the next IPL or BBL season can make cricket fans impatient. Considering the popularity of both leagues, fans would have to look for alternative leagues. At this point, the SRL League comes as a saviour to quench the fans’ impatience.
Cricket SRL is a series of virtual cricket matches that don’t involve real-life players. Instead, the league uses scores from actual matches to simulate matches in a virtual space. Because of that, scores in SRL matches can be highly different from their real-life counterparts.
The working process of SRL matches is quite simple. People only need to feed data to a computer program and have the program simulate matches. The program uses statistics like player success rate to make realistic simulations.
In short, SRL matches are the latest iteration of fantasy sports. Unlike real-life sports, people take part in fantasy sports to create scenarios of their favourite sports. The internet has allowed fantasy sports to reach new levels of popularity. As a result, everyone can take part in the SRL League during off-seasons before the next cricket league starts.
The popularity of the SRL League led to the emergence of the SRL Premier League. Known as the virtual rendition of IPL, the SRL Premier League includes teams from real-life IPL. Teams like Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals are popular in the virtual SRL Premier League.Â
Differences from Real-Life Cricket
Although the SRL League simulates real-life matches, it’s still different from real-life cricket. There are several notable differences between both cricket versions.
The first and most obvious difference is their appearance. Although the SRL League tries to simulate real-life matches, its appearance is much closer to video games. Even though the SRL League’s visual appearance becomes more realistic each year, it’s still a virtual simulation.
The second difference is the time slot for each cricket version. As we know, real-life cricket leagues are held during certain months each year. Because of that, cricket fans must wait until next year if they want to see their favourite cricket league.
However, people can watch SRL League matches anytime. The SRL League has become a popular alternative for fans during off-seasons. Waiting for IPL and BBL is no longer a problem if cricket fans have something they can watch year-round.
Betting on the SRL Premier League
One contributing factor to the popularity of SRL Premier League is sportsbooks. Because cricket is popular among sports bettors, it’s obvious that they also like the SRL Premier League. Sports bettors are some of the most hardcore cricket fans out there, and they want to enjoy their hobby year-round.
Unlike the IPL, the SRL Premier League has more matches than anything the IPL can realistically have. Hardcore fans can bet anytime they want as long as the matches are ongoing.
Furthermore, sports bettors only have to think about statistics. It means that external factors like injuries from previous games aren’t important. As a result, bettors can rest easy because the SRL live scores are free from unexpected problems as mentioned previously.
Cricket fans interested in the SRL Premier League can start betting by visiting the “Leagues” section. In this section, bettors can choose their preferred matches to access the betting markets on the platform.
Once doing so, bettors can choose their desired outcome and confirm the number of placed bets. With these methods, bettors can bet on year-round SRL Premier League matches and keep satisfying their hype thanks to the virtual cricket league.
