India-Pakistan World Cup Clash: Record-Breaking Viewership Shatters Women's Cricket Norms

The high-stakes encounter, which India won by 88 runs at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, drew record-breaking viewership - it had a reach of 28.4 million and 1.87 billion minutes consumed, making it the most-watched women's international cricket match of all time.

In terms of television viewership, the India-Pakistan match has become the highest-rated league stage match in the ICC Women's ODI World Cup history. The India-Australia match on October 12 in Visakhapatnam recorded 4.8 million peak concurrent viewers on JioHotstar, which is also another all-time high for women's cricket.

"The first 11 matches, including India's matches against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Africa delivered a reach of 72 million, marking a 166 percent increase from the previous edition. Viewing minutes surged 327 percent to 6.3 billion, underscoring the growing emotional investment of fans."

"The first 13 matches of the tournament have already reached over 60 million viewers, a five-fold increase over the 2022 edition, while total watch-time has hit 7 billion minutes, up 12 times from the previous tournament," further said the ICC in its statement.

The tournament is being covered on Star Sports channels and JioHotstar in five languages - English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada - as well as in Indian Sign Language for inclusive access, apart from innovations like multi-camera angles and Max View available on live streaming.

Hosts India, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, are occupying the fourth spot in the points table with four points from as many games. They need to win their remaining league games against England, New Zealand and Bangladesh to keep themselves in the race for entering the semi-finals.

- IANS