Twitter and Sony Pictures Networks have joined hands to premium coverage of the Indian cricket team’s Sri Lanka and England tours to the microblogging platform. First, Indian cricket enthusiasts will experience the cricket video content on their Twitter timeline with in-match and powerplay highlights. The video highlights will include India vs Sri Lanka Series (starting July 18) and India vs England Series (starting August 4).

Over the past year, while fans have not had access to the in-stadium experience, Twitter has given them a front-row seat to all the action from the men-in-blue. Sony Pictures Networks’ sports channels, @SonySportsIndia, will provide live coverage of the tours on Twitter. It will include heart-stopping fall of wickets, cracking 4’s and boundary-defying 6’s to classic Man of the Match clips, as well as audience-favourites like the best catches of the match. These video highlights and Twitter Moments will be available for fans across various cricket formats.

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Speaking of the partnership, Amrita Tripathi, who leads global content partnerships for Twitter in India, said, “While the sports experience has changed in recent times, the roar of sports fans on Twitter is louder than ever. Conversations around cricket leagues in 2020 increased by 23 per cent when compared to those in 2019 – which in itself was a record-breaker with 27 million Tweets.”

“We are delighted to partner with Sony to bring in-match premium cricket video content to people on Twitter in India for the very first time, building on a promising content partnership with one of the top sports broadcasters in the region,” Tripathi added.

Manish Aggarwal, Head – Growth and Monetisation, Digital Business, Sony Pictures Networks India, said, “We are excited to partner with Twitter and take our viewer engagement to the next level. It is a pleasure to come together and reach out to cricket enthusiasts with video highlights. Since it is a new and refreshing phenomenon, the viewers will now have one more platform to share/discuss and express their views on the matches.”

This partnership with Sony Pictures Networks will offer brands the chance to align their ads via pre-rolls with this premium content, thus amplifying their ads when audiences on Twitter are the most leaned-in. Learn more about Amplify for publishers and advertisers here.

Sports’ most ardent fans turn to Twitter to get the latest sports news. As per the recent research by Twitter, 69 per cent of all people on Twitter in India classify themselves as cricket fans, and 30 per cent of people describe themselves as huge fans.

The report also showed that 51 per cent of cricket fans on Twitter read posts about matches, players, news reports. In fact, this season, 25 per cent of fans plan to engage with Tweets during the match, and 31 per cent of fans plan to watch videos, and 25 per cent of fans want to follow the teams on the service.

Through the course of this year, Twitter will bring you a range of different cricket content from partners, like the sports channels of Sony Pictures Networks India, including Twitter Spaces and behind the scenes action with the Twitter #BlueRoom for the upcoming World Cup series and India vs Australia women’s series.