India-Pakistan T20 World Cup game most watched ever

THE match between arch-rivals India and Pakistan in the T20 World Cup in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, last month might not have made the Indian supporters happy but the International Cricket Council (ICC) revealed on Thursday (25) that commercial interests were more than elated with the game as it registered a massive viewership.

According to the cricket’s international governing body, the match had the most views with 15.9 billion minutes in India alone. The tournament itself saw a record viewership of 167 million as nearly 10,000 hours of live coverage was offered across television and digital platforms in 200 nations.

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It was in fact the most watched T20 match in history and it broke the previous highest – the semi-final match between India and the West Indies in the 2016 edition which was held in India, it was learnt from the ICC.

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The India-Pakistan game though was a one-sided affair as Pakistan crushed India by 10 wickets to register their first-ever win over their arch-rivals in a World Cup event.

The overall television consumption for the entire T20 World Cup held in Oman and the UAE was recorded at 112 billion minutes and this happened despite India’s early exit from the tournament. India were the technical host of the tournament which was later shifted to the Middle East because of the outbreak of the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic in India.

Virat Kohli’s men could not make the semi-finals after losing their first two games against Pakistan and New Zealand. It was also Kohli’s final tournament as T20 captain.

“We are pleased with these outstanding global viewership numbers, that demonstrate the power of T20I cricket to attract a huge audience across the globe on linear and digital platforms,” ICC CEO Geoff Allardice said in a release.

“It reinforces our belief that there is a significant opportunity and appetite to grow the game in our strategic growth markets including the USA, so more fans can enjoy it, more kids are inspired by it and sponsors and broadcasters want to be a part of it.”

In the UK, the viewership for the crunch game went up by 60 per cent whereas the overall viewership for the market increased by seven per cent, India Today reported.

The ICC’s partnership with Facebook significantly increased the video views, with a total of 4.3 billion views across all channels for the tournament, compared to 3.6 billion views registered in the 2019 edition of the ICC men’s World Cup.

The consumption across the digital assets also went up, recording 2.55 billion minutes.

ICC’s social media channels saw a rise in engagement at 618 million across those platforms, which is a 28 per cent jump since the 2019 World Cup, the India Today report added.