India and Its Love Affair with Fantasy Cricket

Indians have always loved cricket. But there was a time when fantasy sports meant something else altogether. Before the advent of the internet and the Indian T20 League, you would be considered lucky if the city or town you lived in hosted an international game every few years. Most of the time, that would be as close as you ever get to be to your cricket heroes. Fantasy cricket back then meant going out onto the streets or gullies of your neighborhood and pretending you were Sunil Gavaskar or Kapil Dev. Later on, as Virat Kohli has mentioned in numerous interviews, most kids played imagining they were Sachin Tendulkar. That was what fantasy cricket possibly meant back then

But that’s not the case anymore. Apps like Howzat have given a new dimension to the cricket-watching experience. Now you don’t just watch a game on your TV screen or in the stands. A fantasy app allows you to play along in a way, with the team you select scoring points based on the players’ actual performances in the middle. Instead of a passive experience, fantasy sports allow you to immerse yourself in the on-field action.

Recession-free segment

The numbers clearly show the extent to which fantasy cricket has grabbed the fans’ imagination. A recent study done by the FICCI and Ernst & Young says the fantasy sports industry in India will be worth $2.5 billion in 2022. With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32 percent, it will be nudging toward $4 billion by 2024. Another study conducted in partnership with KPMG put the fantasy sports user base at around 90 million in 2019. With the pandemic having kept so many at home since then, that figure must have increased a lot by the end of the year.

And while fantasy football and fantasy kabaddi are also carving out niches for themselves, the big dog in the room is very much fantasy cricket, with about 70 percent of fantasy sports players in India naming it as their game of choice. Apps like Howzat have grown wings too. No longer do fantasy players have to focus only on India matches or the Indian T20 League. They can show off their cricket knowledge even when it comes to the Australian T20 League and other domestic tournaments across the world, as well as the T20 World Cup and 50- over World Cup.

Exponential growth

The current scenario was almost unimaginable two decades ago, when ESPN-Star Sports and Super Selector first put fantasy sports on the Indian map. At its peak, Super Selector had a following of about 500,000. The fan base now is more than 200 times that.

Even with hockey claiming to be India’s national sport, cricket had been India’s most- watched spectator sport long before the 1983 World Cup win. But the relationship between players and fans stayed the same for decades. It was only once fantasy sports started to be played that the fans could take a direct, personal interest in their heroes’ performances.

With fantasy cricket, every ball counts. Every run scored, wicket taken and catch pouched means more points and a higher place on the leaderboard. At the end of it, there are often lucrative cash prizes too.

Fantasy cricket mimics on-field action

A main reason for the huge popularity of fantasy sports is how closely it mirrors the events on the field of play. Team selection and point scoring are not arbitrary. The players’ values are fixed based on their historic records and the team selected has to have a realistic balance between batters, bowlers, all-rounders and wicketkeepers. Just as real-life cricket selection isn’t about picking the best XI players, fantasy cricket involves picking an XI within the budget you’re given, without the team being skewed in favor of one skill set.

Take the next step

The best fantasy apps not only allow you to test your knowledge of the game in tournaments being played across the world, but they also give you a chance to pit your wits against the game’s greats. Howzat, for example, has come up with its Beat the Legends feature, where the team you select is pitted against that chosen by experts like Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina and Irfan Pathan. Even if you never had the sporting talent to wow the world like they did, it gives you the opportunity to show that you have an elite cricket brain.

The fantasy cricket segment will only continue to grow. Unlike two generations ago when teams played half a dozen Tests a year and a World Cup every 4 years, cricket is now played around the world. An Indian cricket fan in 2022 can switch from India’s matches in South Africa to the Australian T20 League. Soon there’ll be another season of the Indian T20 League, and then the next T20 World Cup to be held in Australia.

The action doesn’t stop, and neither does the fantasy team selection. If you’ve so far just watched others play and win big rewards, this is the time to start doing it yourself. Download the Howzat fantasy app and get playing. You can test yourself by playing unlimited practice games for free before joining lucrative cash contests and leagues. And once your confidence is sky high, why not take on a cricket legend or two? You may still enjoy those gully cricket games, but with fantasy cricket, you’re now much closer to the action than ever before.