More than one billion television viewers were tipped to have watched the clash of Asia's cricketing titans on Sunday (15 February) when India beat Pakistan in the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.
The match, which is expected to have been the most watched in the history of cricket, saw title-holders India emerge as victors over their fierce rivals for the sixth time in succession. The 114.4 million strong TV audience of the US Super Bowl XLIX on 2 February is dwarfed in comparison to the estimated one billion TV audience – for what was 'only' a group stage game of cricket.
Virat Kohli scored 107 to help India to victory in the T20 match played in front of a sell-out crowd of 53,000 at the Adelaide Oval in Australia.
"My understanding is that this game is going to have the biggest television audience of a cricket game ever,'' Andrew Daniels, chief of the Adelaide Oval, told the Sunday Mail. "To put it in perspective, for everybody sitting in the stadium there will be about 200,000 people around the world watching it on TV.
"It's an honour that Adelaide has been selected to host this game," he added.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted after the game "Congrats Team India. Well played. We are all very proud of you".
The Star Sports Network brought this live action exclusively to Indian fans' TV sets and also streamed video via its starsports.com website – along with all other ICC Cricket World Cup matches. Meanwhile in Pakistan, PTV Sports provided free online video live for this and the future matches of the tournament that feature the national team.
The new private satellite channel Gazi TV Bangla is providing live streaming and live commentary of all the World Cup matches to audiences in Bangladesh.
In Australia, Fox Sports and Nine Network are televising the T20 cricket tournament, while Sky Sports are covering it live for audiences in New Zealand. The two countries are jointly hosting the event, which runs until 29 March.
