Kolkata, March 18 (FN Agency) Star Sports, the official television broadcaster of IPL 2023, has beenthe home for Cricket fans across the country for more than a decade. As fans gear up for the 16th edition of IPL 2023, Star Sports for the first time ever has brought together a galaxy of stars from the Cricket world, to bring these heroes closest to their fans. The purpose of bringing together legends like Rohit Sharma, who was recently voted the most incredible captain in IPL history, and Virat Kohli, who received the award for the Most Incredible Season, along with the captain of the defending champion in IPL – Hardik Pandya, captains of Lucknow Super Giants and Kolkata Knight Riders – KL Rahul & Shreyas Iyer, and one of thegreatest IPL all-rounders of all time – Ravindra Jadeja (Chennai Super Kings), was to give fansa unique opportunity to get to know their favourite heroes at a more personal level and witness a never-seen-before side to them as they share stories of successes, hardships, and joy from their journeys as well as their likes and dislikes.
Speaking about the exclusive association with the biggest IPL Heroes this season, a Star Sports Spokesperson said, “Fans love to cheer for their favourite heroes and are always intrigued by their personas off the field. As official TV broadcasters for the IPL 2023, we want to bring fans closest to their heroes and help build an emotional connect which goes beyond on-field performances. We will continue to bring these stories alive during our coverage of IPL 2023, especially on India’s most watched Cricket show – Cricket Live.”Glimpses of this content were provided during Star Sports’ preview to IPL 2023 called “Stars on Star”. During the preview show, Chennai Super Kings’ all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja revealed that he initially wanted to be a pacer, “When I started playing cricket long back, I used to love being a fast bowler. I used to love seeing other fast bowlers bowling bouncers. Watching them, even I used to think that I would also bowl bouncers to batters, but I didn’t have the speed to be a fast bowler.
“I told this to Mahi bhai, that my cricketing journey has been between Mahendra Singh Chauhan, my coach in Jamnagar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, my captain at CSK. My cricketing journey has really been between these two Mahendra’s”, he added. In the preview show, Mumbai Indians’ captain Rohit Sharma – about to complete 10 years of captaincy for MI – recalled the bid he received during the inaugural IPL auction, “Firstly, I didn’t even know how much $750,000 is. A thing like the auction had never happened for us before and nobody even heard of it. My number came very late in the auction, probably after one and half hour. After I was sold, I was told that I was getting $750,000, I think it was 3 to 3.5 crore. But I was really happy and thought about which car should I buy. That was the planning I was doing! I was only 20 years-old at that time.” Rohit, Kohli, Hardik, Shreyas, Jadeja, and Rahul are also a part of Star Sports’ “Shor On, Game On” campaign which promotes community viewing, virtues of experiencing IPL together on a big screen, and the benefits of watching the tournament on Disney Star’s TV network.