When India's premier automobile brand collaborates with the foremost digital destination for cricket enthusiasts, it sparks a dynamic partnership that transforms the fan experience into an extraordinary journey. This World Cup, Maruti Suzuki – the nation's leading car manufacturer – joined forces with ESPNcricinfo to elevate the thrill of the cricket season for avid fans seeking an immersive experience.
The brief was simple: create content with the Maruti Suzuki persona at its core, to excite fans online and create conversations that can outlast the tournament. Thus was created a set of high-quality, value-driven content that would captivate the attention of cricket fans across a 4-month period that boasted of the WPL, IPL, and the T20 World Cup 2024!
It began with "Maruti Suzuki Arena presents ICONS, Made for More" – insightful and entertaining conversations with the legendary Mithali Raj, shot in the stylish Maruti Suzuki S-PRESSO. Mithali and popular sports presenter Bhavna Balakrishnan explored modern-day icons of women's cricket, truly made for more.
As we moved to the IPL, Maruti Suzuki came onboard as the presenting sponsors on ESPNcricinfo’s daily video show – Timeout, featuring top cricket experts who dissected the day’s happenings. From Steve Smith and Irfan Pathan to Ian Bishop, Tom Moody, and Varun Aaron – the flagship show saw a power-packed combine.
The T20 World Cup began with a singular event, Maruti Suzuki Arena presents T20 Rendezvous in association with JBL, where two reputed thought leaders from the game – Irfan Pathan and Mathew Hayden – came together in a unique setting in the presence of a live audience who were in for a real feast!
Maruti Suzuki Arena presents ESPNcricinfo Timeout continued into the T20 World Cup, we saw the likes of spin legend Anil Kumble, Andy Flower, Stephen Fleming, Tom Moody, Urooj Mumtaz, Ian Bishop, and Aaron Finch lead our panel. They were joined by Morne Morkel, Tamin Iqbal, Nick Knight, Daren Ganga & others.
An exciting addition to the mix was Gameboard – a novel feature that gave fans a visually stunning, interactive, and customizable live scorecard experience.
That’s not all! The coming weeks will see a unique content strand being added to this collaboration - Maruti Suzuki Arena presents Road to the Future, a series of short videos featuring talented youngsters like Sachin Dhas, Arshin Kulkarni & others that hold promise to become tomorrow's superstars.
This would not have been possible without the unwavering support of the MSIL team led by Bhuvan Dheer, Ankur Sharma, Ananda Dharmapal, Munesh Thusoo, Nitish Bansal, Pallavi Yadav, Aradhana Wadhwa, Siddarth Rakhra, Sahil H., Aditya Dogra, Rajat Sapra and Gaurav Khanna.
They were ably supported by the Mindshare India team - Sanjay Prakash, Pankaj Nagpal, Purnima Kathuria Bhambri, Anil Sansanwal and Harmeet Singh.
Akshaya Kolhe Saurabh Sabharwal Swikriti Sharma Taruna Thakur Manika Wadhwa Abhishek Mittal Hrishikesh Gangoli