T20 World Cup 2021: Kohli, Pollard & Rashid Khan feature in official tournament anthem

The International Cricket Council on Thursday announced that Virat Kohli, Kieron Pollard, Glenn Maxwell, and Rashid Khan have launched the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 campaign. ICC in an official release on their website invited fans to ‘Live the Game’ with the premiere of the official anthem and promo film for the tournament. ICC also added that the 16-team tournament is the biggest sports event ever to be held in UAE and Oman and will take place from October 17 to November 14.

As mentioned in the release by ICC, the animated film features young fans from around the globe immersed and engaged in the explosive T20 format of the game and also features some of the biggest superstars. The animated film is composed by renowned Bollywood music director Amit Trivedi. As explained by ICC, the Indian skipper Virat Kohli leads the group of players brought to life as ‘avatars’ in the animated film, who interact with each other throughout.

ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 Trophy Tour was launched in August.

Apart from Kohli, the film also features Captain of the defending champions West Indies, Kieron Pollard as well as Australia’s Glenn Maxwell and Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan. The film has been launched under the collaboration of the global broadcast partner of ICC, Star Sports. The film premieres worldwide across the official social media handles of ICC, BCCI, and Star Sports. Earlier in August, ICC released the virtual tour of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 Trophy, which can be found by the fans on the official Facebook and Instagram handles of the T20 World Cup.

Claire Furlong, ICC General Manager, Marketing and Communication, after the launch of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup campaign, said, “We are excited to be launching this film ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 which is so different to anything we have delivered before. Cricket has more than a billion fans around the world, and we wanted to put our young fans in the heart of the action alongside their heroes and allow them to live the game. Partnering with Star Sports and Amit Trivedi to create the animation and music for the campaign has given us a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the fact that India are our hosts despite the event being staged in Oman and the UAE. I hope cricket fans enjoy watching and listening to this as much as we enjoyed creating it”. The T20 World Cup begins on October 17 with the group stage matches, whereas the Super 12 matches will begin on October 23. India will play their first match against Pakistan on October 24.

(Image: PTI/AP)