The cricketing world’s biggest rivalry played to a “full house” on February 23. The ICC Champions Trophy clash between India and Pakistan recorded more than 60 crore views on the JioHotstar platform, the streaming service for the 2025 edition of the tournament.
Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer put up a stellar show with the bat as India overhauled the 241-run target set by Pakistan with six wickets to spare in Dubai. “King Kohli” hit the winning four in the forty-second over, reaching his 51st ODI ton and India taking the top slot in Group A after an easy win.
The much-awaited day and night game between the two sides, which haven’t played a bilateral series in more than 10 years, had viewers hooked from the time Mohammad Shami bowled the first ball after Pakistan chose to bat first after winning the toss.
Two hours into the match, views on the over-the-top (OTT) platform had touched 20.6 crore, which climbed to 23 crore and then surged to 28 crore in the next hour as Pakistan continued to lose wickets.
At the end of Pakistan's innings, the number of views reached 32 crore from around six crore when Shami bowled the first over.
As India came into bat, the numbers climbed to 38.9 crore. The interest grew as Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma started the chase on an explosive note, dealing in boundaries. Gill was dismissed for 46(52), while Rohit fell for 20 (15).
Earlier, a clinical show by the bowlers helped India bundle out Pakistan for 241.
India's run chase saw the match recording around 33 crore views in the early overs and remained steady for some time before climbing to 50 crore as the game entered the last lap. The views further rocketed to over 60 crore as Kohli neared his landmark ton.
The views on the OTT platform are not unique views, which means that if a viewer opens the app/platform 10 times, the number of views for the single viewer will be counted as 10 views.
JioHotstar, which came into being after the merger of Disney+Hotstar and JioCinema, displays views and not concurrent viewers.
Earlier this month, JioStar, the recently formed joint venture with the merger of Viacom18 and Star India, announced the launch of JioHotstar, merging JioCinema and Disney+Hotstar.
The last time when the two teams clashed in the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup, the erstwhile Disney+HotStar recorded the highest peak concurrency of 3.5 crore.
The on-ground interest was also high. The International Cricket Council (ICC) made available some extra tickets on February 16 to meet demand.
While tickets were available in the Rs 11,800 (standard) -Rs 3 lakh (high-end), high demand led to a surge in pricing with some tickets going for as high as Rs 56 lakh.
The high viewer interest also attracted advertisers, with a 10-second advertising slot on television going for Rs 50 lakh, three times the price during the popular Indian Premier League, a Business Standard report said.
The rates were also higher than the 2023 ICC 50-over World Cup when 10-second slots went for Rs 30-40 lakh during the India-Pakistan game.
Disclosure: Moneycontrol is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.
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