Have to find ways to generate artificial atmosphere at stadium, feels Ollie Pope

After three months of total shutdown, the month of June saw sporting action across the world slowly but steadily put itself back into the world map, with the Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga leading the way. All the aforementioned leagues played their games behind closed doors but to combat the lack of atmosphere, the competitions were seen coming up with innovative ways to bring life to the match and one such method was the bolstering of the atmosphere using fake crowd noises.

Other sporting events across the world, too, have been coming up with funky innovations to make the matches feel ‘alive’ and while an industry like wrestling has been using the wrestlers, themselves, as the audience members - something that won’t render effective in large stadiums - other sports have used mannequins and cardboard cut-outs to make it look like there are spectators present.

With cricket set to return in four days’ time, the players are set to face the prospect of playing in front of empty stands and according to English batsman Ollie Pope, it would be nice if the ECB found a way to artificially induce crowd noises just to give the players a lift when the chips are down. He did, however, assert that the absence of spectators would by no means affect the quality of the cricket that’s played on the field.

"It has been quiet, especially at a ground like this where there is nothing going on outside the ground and no real noise out there, but that doesn't change the quality of the cricket. Whether we are going to play a bit of music out of the speakers I'm not sure but we can find ways of creating our own atmosphere I'm sure. We've got to find a way to do that when we get on top or when we need a bit of energy,” Pope was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.

"When we have big crowds in and the Barmy Army are here it is amazing but we'll still be playing Test cricket and it's still the pinnacle. Even if there's not a single person in the crowd it's still what we all dreamed of doing. There will still be the same nerves in the morning because so much rides on it. When that Test match starts up, crowd or no crowd, you are going to be really up for it.”

Pope, who was a part of Team Buttler in England’s intra-squad warm-up match and struck 25 and 55* in his two outings, expressed his satisfaction over the quality and intensity of cricket that was seen in the warm-up game and attested that the players were headed in the right direction.

"The quality of competition going on out there was really high-class throughout the three days. I think we're getting there. I felt pretty good in the first innings, and it was nice to spend a bit more time out there today. We're all moving the right direction."

Pope will most certainly be a part of England’s starting XI in the first Test at the Ageas Bowl that will commence on July 8.