Twitter brings an extravagant experience for Cricket Fans with new features

Twitter is what’s happening in the world, and this cricket season, it will enable fans to have a larger-than-life experience from the comforts of their couch through a range of features that will allow them to follow and participate in conversations a lot more intimately.

In 2020, the absence of on-ground cricket action prompted more fans to turn to Twitter, converting the service into a virtual stadium. Fans came to the service to discuss match moments, cheer their favourite teams and interact with their cricket idols. As a result, the conversations during the cricket season in 2020 increased by 23% in comparison to the 2019 season. This year, as cricket fans gear-up for another exciting year, Twitter has curated a host of innovative, interactive experiences for fans to celebrate and participate in conversations as they happen in real-time on the service. 

Here’s how fans can follow the upcoming tournament on Twitter:

1. Spaces: Spaces, Twitter’s newest offering, allows people to come together to have live audio conversations. Spaces is a great feature for people to have conversations about things that they’re passionate about, or just gather in an intimate environment to chat using their voice. With cricket being such a huge passion point on Twitter, teams have already started making the most of Spaces to connect with and engage fans on the service. Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) recently hosted a Twitter Space with Zaheer Khan (@ImZaheer) - #TwitterSpaceWithZak - becoming the first sports club in the country to do so. The Space had Zaheer interacting with fans and sharing plans for the upcoming season. 
2. Emojis: Twitter has launched eight new jersey emojis for all the teams in English and six Indic languages. Fans can simply Tweet with the team hashtags to unlock these emojis and participate in live conversations. Here are some of the hashtags that will unlock the team emojis: #IPL2021, #MumbaiIndians, #OneFamily, #WhistlePodu, #விசில்போடு, #WeAreChallengers, #HallaBol, #RoyalsFamily, #PunjabKings, #SaddaPunjab, #KKRHaiTaiyaar, #KorboLorboJeetbo, #YehHaiNayiDilli, #OrangeArmy, and more.
3.  Topics: Twitter Topics allow people to follow conversations on specific subjects. Using machine learning, Topics pull out related Tweets on a subject, letting people follow numerous interest categories. When you follow a Topic, you will see Tweets from a number of accounts - whether you follow them or not - on the shared interest. Last year, Twitter introduced several Topics for the cricket - one for the series and several others for all of the teams  - so people can stay up-to-date with all conversations around cricket. 
4. Twitter Lists: Twitter Lists - a compilation of Twitter accounts - let people put together their favourite accounts to follow for Tweets on a specific subject and populate a separate timeline for the List. When you view this List timeline, you will see Tweets from all of the accounts in that List. To let people keep a close eye on what their favourites from the cricket season are saying and doing, Twitter has created Lists of accounts to follow for each team - including the squads as well as their coaches.

5.  Live shows: Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals will be hosting live shows to bring fans closer together. The shows will involve commentary and watching the game virtually along with a select group of fans every match day. Whereas, ESPN Cricinfo (@CricinfoHindi) will be sharing Hindi videos this season from their new Hindi handle. 

6. Events Page and Scorecard: Fans can simply go to an events page to follow all the live updates and real-time conversations on Twitter. Additionally, fans can also check out the live scores on the Scorecard which will be featured on the top of the Events page and follow the match on the go. For all the real time conversations around the opening match #MIvRCB, just follow the below events page

   Through these unique innovations, audiences on the service will get more opportunities than before to get closer to their favourite teams and players and show their instant support, something that Twitter has been offering from the get-go. Stay tuned for more updates.