FanCode, India’s premier digital sports destination for all fans, has bagged exclusive 4-year broadcast rights for England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) new format cricket competition, The Hundred, in India. The action-packed 100-ball cricket competition will include 68 matches played over five weeks starting July 21, 2021. The game has eight women’s and men’s teams from major cities across England and Wales.
ECB’s The Hundred is an entirely new format of cricket. It has 100 balls per innings, wherein the bowling changes ends every ten balls. Bowlers deliver either five or ten consecutive balls, and each bowler can deliver a maximum of 20 balls per game. A 25-ball powerplay for each team allows two fielders outside of the initial 30-yard circle. Each of the eight squads will have 15 players with a maximum of three overseas stars.
The partnership between ECB and Dream Sports, the parent company of Dream11 and FanCode, is a comprehensive sports deal. FanCode will be the Official Broadcast Partner in India and Dream11 an Official Partner.
Tony Singh, Chief Commercial Officer, England, and Wales Cricket Board, said: “The Hundred is a new, innovative, cricket competition featuring some of the world’s top players, and we’re excited that fans in India will be able to enjoy the action. We’re sure it will be a big hit with fans across the globe. As both FanCode and Dream11 are at the forefront of transforming digital sports engagement and experience in India, we are thrilled to partner with them to bring the most comprehensive and immersive sports experience for Indian cricket fans.”
Talking about the partnership, Prasana Krishnan, Co-Founder of FanCode, said, “We are excited to bring The Hundred to our rapidly growing fan base in India. Continuous digital innovation in creating unmatched sports viewing and engagement experience is an important part of our customer promise, and The Hundred, with its unique format, fits in perfectly with what we at FanCode stand for.”
Commenting on this, Vikrant Mudaliar, Chief Marketing Officer at Dream Sports, said, “We are thrilled to launch a comprehensive partnership with ECB for their new and exciting cricket tournament, ‘The Hundred’, with both Dream11 and FanCode. Through this partnership, we hope to drive fan engagement for The Hundred by reaching over 120 million Dream Sports fans in India. ‘The Hundred’ offers a truly innovative format, and we are confident that cricket fans will love this new sporting experience.”
The competition will give equal weight to both men’s and women’s sides, with almost all the matches taking place as back-to-back men’s and women’s matches at the same venue on the same day. Cricketing greats such as Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Rashid Khan, Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis, Sunil Narine, Eoin Morgan, Moeen Ali, and Jonny Bairstow, among others, feature in this action-packed competitive format. The competition will also feature five Indian players across women’s teams – Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma and Jemimah Rodrigues. The eight brand new city-based teams are Birmingham Phoenix (Edgbaston), London Spirit (Lord’s), Manchester Originals (Emirates Old Trafford), Northern Superchargers (Emerald Headingley), Oval Invincibles (Kia Oval), Southern Brave (Ageas Bowl), Trent Rockets (Trent Bridge) and Welsh Fire (Sophia Gardens).
FanCode will provide a personalized sports experience to Indian sports fans through many user-first features for all the LIVE action from The Hundred. Some of these offerings include interactive data overlays, fastest ad-free live scores, multimedia commentary, in-depth sports statistics and analytics, real-time match highlights, multiple audio feeds, and much more. Fans will also have the flexibility to watch a single match or the entire tournament through ‘Match Pass’ and ‘Tour Pass’, respectively.
