After a disappointing exit from the T20 World Cup, Team India is all set to start afresh with a new skipper Hardik Pandya at the helm for their New Zealand tour. Pandya will captain the men in blue for the three match T20I series while Shikhar Dhawan will captain in the three match ODI series. Cricket fans will get to so some new faces with some marking their debut as the bigwigs Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been rested for the tour.
The first T20I between India and New Zealand will be played on November 18, Friday. All the matches will be telecast live on Amazon Prime Video. As per reports, some new features like in-game language selector and “Rapid Recap” will be deployed by the channel to bring a new experience for the cricket fans. The in-game language selector will allow customers to change language (e.g., English to Hindi) seamlessly without exiting the player. Customers joining a game in progress can catch-up on impactful game highlights using the “Rapid Recap” feature before transitioning to the live stream automatically.
Fans will get to experience a high-quality localized content feed in India, with commentary and graphics across five languages including, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, along with English. The Prime Video commentary team will feature the likes of Ravi Shastri, Harsha Bhogle, Zaheer Khan, Anjum Chopra, Gundappa Vishwanath, Venkatpathy Raju, among others. The live telecast of the matches will include pre, mid and post-match shows for game analysis.
As per reports, international men’s and women’s cricket matches played in New Zealand across all formats – will be available exclusively on Prime Video India.
Currently, Team India is the No.1 ranked T20I team in the world while New Zealand is at the 5th position. But home advantage for the Kiwis will make it a tough ask for the visitors. Fast bowler Umran Malik who was highly backed by several experts for the T20 World Cup, is a part of India’s squad for the series.
“There are many things that are heterogenous about the delightfully diverse India when it comes to entertainment – be it choice of language, genres of shows and movies, devices that customers prefer watching their favourite entertainment on, and so much more. But there is one absolute unifier that everyone across the country is unanimously passionate about, and that’s cricket! With our slate of compelling shows and movies over the last 6 years, we have strived to super-serve our customers, and they have emphatically picked Prime Video as their most loved entertainment destination. Now with live cricket, made immersive and accessible with multi-language feeds, fantastic studio programming and a superb set of commentators to take us through the series, we are confident we are not just going to deliver on a superior experience for the legions of cricket fans in the country, but make Prime Video that much more exciting, delightful and the first choice of entertainment for everyone,” Sushant Sreeram, director – SVOD business, Prime Video, India said.
“India and New Zealand have both been at the top of their white ball games in the recent past and we expect some explosive cricket in the coming weeks from two of the best teams in the world as the cricketing action now moves from Australia to New Zealand.”
Prime Video will deliver live commentary and match-programming in English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. Fans will also be treated to graphics in these languages. The BlackCaps knocked the Men in Blue out of the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup, and also defeated India in the inaugural World Test Championship final in 2021.
