New Delhi [India], April 1 (ANI): Former Indian all-rounder and head coach Ravi Shastri said that the Legends League Cricket (LLC) has surpassed various T20 leagues worldwide outside of Indian Premier League (IPL) due to the star power present in the league and has become a sought-after event among fans.

LLC Masters 2023 featured former Indian stars like Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, Irfan Pathan among others playing against top international legends like Shahid Afridi, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Shoaib Akhtar, Aaron Finch, Brett Lee, Chris Gayle, Jacques Kallis, Shane Watson etc.

Shastri, who is the commissioner of LLC said as quoted by a release from the league, "The recently concluded season has clearly established Legends League Cricket as a sought-after event amongst the cricket fans. We have created a completely new category with Legends League Cricket in the form of LLC Masters. We are happy that we have been able to position ourselves as a logical extension to active cricket as 2nd innings for Legends. With top names headlining our league, we have already in some capacity or the other surpassed various other T20 leagues around the world outside of IPL. We are all geared up for season 3 of the tournament and looking forward to entertaining the fans across the world."Raman Raheja, CEO of Legends League Cricket added, "We had a massive response from fans as we had co-produced the season with Star Sports with the Live Feed in 5 languages -English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. Even the other aspects of fan engagement around the league have increased manifold as we saw massive engagement via gaming platforms globally. This is a very good sign for us and we shall be building on this in the future."The recently concluded second edition of the LLC Masters held in Doha, Qatar witnessed a new milestone in its journey by registering a global digital footprint of 1.48 billion. The league which was bringing cricket back to Qatar after three decades saw an overall jump of 50 per cent in fan reach as compared to the previous edition in Oman wherein the tournament had registered a footprint of 703 million.

Further, adding to the cricket frenzy, more than 75 per cent of the footprint is from South Asia including India which has the largest Cricket fanbase in the World. As per the BARC data, the average TV rating (TVR) for the matches has seen at least 15 per cent higher ratings and viewership than any other International T20 league (other than IPL) being watched in India throughout the year. To top that, a cumulative viewership of about 100 million fans in India on TV and Digital in just 8 matches.

With a global digital reach of about 1.48 billion, LLC Masters was also trending in many cricket-loving nations. This includes about 985 million reach through various social media platforms. Seeing the cricketing greats enjoy and having them together in Qatar also ensured more than 528 million social media interactions in the span of the tournament. (ANI)