The newest addition of technology in the sports industry that has taken over the market since its inception is the non-fungible token (NFT). Sportspersons and sports leagues from all over the globe have associated with it or else finding a way to get involved with it. The unique and non-interchangeable data that is preserved on a digital ledger has gathered the attention of some of the well-known Indian cricketers also.
Rishab Pant, Smriti Mandhana and Zaheer Khan have teamed up with Rario, which is also the first officially licensed digital collectibles platform for cricket. An association with the popular NFT platform will help the cricketers to launch their NFTs shortly.
Some have just enrolled with an NFT platform while some have gone a step ahead and launched their digital collectibles.
India’s first-ever sports NFT was launched by the Indian wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik in October. The former Kolkata Knight Riders’ skipper smashed a last-ball six against Bangladesh in 2018 to win the Nidahas Trophy. The iconic six by Karthik was captured in the form of NFT. A voice-over by Karthik is present in the NFT art, that mentions his thoughts and emotions while playing the delivery and hitting the maximum. For the NFT art project, the 36-year-old teamed up with his brother-in-law and squash player Saurav Ghoshal.
Indian cricket’s legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar launched his NFT on November 21. Gavaskar joined hands with alwaysfirst.io. to roll out his NFT. The former batsman’s NFT will include some iconic moments of his stellar career, Gavaskar becoming the first batsman to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket, the little-master scoring 774 runs in a single Test series and claiming the record of most Test centuries (34) for decades.
India’s most stylish stroke player, Yuvraj Singh revealed on his birthday earlier this week that he will be launching his NFT on December 25, 2021. The Indian superstar had inked an association with Colexion to launch his NFT. With this NFT venture, the former Indian all-rounder aims to gift some precious moments of his illustrious career to his fans.
The newest Indian cricketer to join the NFT bandwagon is Sreesanth. The Indian pacer is all set to launch a gamified NFT collection on Blind Boxes. This agreement will allow his fans to collect the one-of-a-kind items that represent him.
The growth of the NFT market in the country is inevitable with some of the veterans of Indian cricket getting along with the booming digital collectibles.