80-feet long bat to convey best wishes for Twenty20 World Cup for Indian team

MUMBAI - Cricket fans in Mumbai sign up on a huge 80-feet long bat, sending best wishes for the Indian team ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup in England beginning next month.

At 80 feet, organizers claim it’s the world’s largest bat ever made. It would need only a superhuman to hold the bat but that’s not what it’s intended to.

Put up on display in Mumbai, the huge bat was thrown open to cricket fans on Sunday to pen their best wishes for the Indian team.

“It is a very innovative way of wishing Indian cricket team. Earlier people used to wish by SMSing. It is a very innovative and useful way of wishing Indian cricket team which even they (the cricket team) won’t be able to ignore,” said Karan Singh, a fan.

“This is an eighty feet long bat which is longest in the country and I feel it would be in the whole world. This is another opportunity where we are trying to engage people with the brand and with the sport so that it comes out as a good fusion,” said Ketan Girap, a sponsor.

India won the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007 to ensure the game’s newest format gained instant popularity in cricket’s commercial hub.

Indian team for the Twenty20 World Cup in England next month comprises of Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Pragyan Ojha and Irfan Pathan. (ANI)