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Dream Sports’ FanCode to exclusively broadcast ECB’s ‘The Hundred’ in India
Mumbai: Dream Sports’ FanCode has bagged exclusive four-year broadcast rights for England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) new format cricket competition, The Hundred. The partnership between ECB and Dream Sports, the parent company of both Dream11 and FanCode, is a comprehensive sports deal with FanCode as an official broadcast partner in India and Dream11 an official partner.
The action-packed 100-ball cricket competition will include 68 matches played over five weeks starting 21 July. In an entirely new format of cricket, ECB’s The Hundred has eight women’s and men’s teams from major cities across England and Wales. A 25-ball powerplay for each team will allow two fielders outside of the initial 30-yard circle. Each of the eight squads will have 15 players with a maximum of three overseas stars.
FanCode will provide a personalised sports experience to Indian sports fans through many user-first features for all the LIVE action from The Hundred. Some of these offerings include interactive data overlays, fastest ad-free live scores, multimedia commentary, in-depth sports statistics and analytics, real-time match highlights, multiple audio feeds, and much more, the platform said in a statement.
“The Hundred is a new, innovative, cricket competition featuring some of the world’s top players, and we’re excited that fans in India will be able to enjoy the action,” said ECB’s chief commercial officer Tony Singh. “We’re sure it will be a big hit with fans across the globe. As both FanCode and Dream11 are at the forefront of transforming digital sports engagement and experience in India, we are thrilled to partner with them to bring the most comprehensive and immersive sports experience for Indian cricket fans.”
“We are excited to bring The Hundred to our rapidly growing fan base in India,” said FanCode co-founder Prasana Krishnan. “Continuous digital innovation in creating unmatched sports viewing and engagement experience is an important part of our customer promise, and The Hundred, with its unique format, fits in perfectly with what we at FanCode stand for.”
“We are thrilled to launch a comprehensive partnership with ECB for their new and exciting cricket tournament, ‘The Hundred’, with both Dream11 and FanCode,” said Dream Sports’ chief marketing officer Vikrant Mudaliar. “Through this partnership, we hope to drive fan engagement for The Hundred by reaching over 120 million Dream Sports fans in India. ‘The Hundred’ offers a truly innovative format, and we are confident that cricket fans will love this new sporting experience.”
The competition will give equal weight to both men’s and women’s sides, with almost all the matches taking place as back-to-back men’s and women’s matches at the same venue on the same day. It will feature five Indian players across women’s teams – Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, and Jemimah Rodrigues. Cricketing greats such as Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Rashid Khan, Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis, Sunil Narine, Eoin Morgan, Moeen Ali, and Jonny Bairstow, among others, feature in this action-packed competitive format.
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Telcos push for unified rules as spam shifts to OTT platforms
Over 80 per cent fraud moves online, operators seek common framework.
MUMBAI: The spam may have left your phone network but it hasn’t left you alone. India’s telecom operators are once again dialling up the pressure for a unified regulatory framework, warning that fraud is rapidly migrating to internet-based platforms where oversight remains far looser. According to industry communication, a leading operator has written to multiple arms of the government including the Department of Telecommunications, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Finance arguing that tighter controls on traditional telecom networks are inadvertently pushing bad actors towards over-the-top (OTT) communication platforms.
The concern is not new, but the framing has sharpened. What was once an industry grievance is now being positioned as a consumer protection issue. Operators say that tackling spam in silos no longer works, as fraudsters seamlessly shift across platforms, exploiting regulatory gaps. The result: a moving target that traditional safeguards struggle to contain.
Executives point to a clear shift in fraud patterns. OTT platforms are increasingly being used for phishing links, impersonation scams and bulk unsolicited messaging, with industry estimates suggesting that over 80 per cent of spam activity has now migrated online. In this environment, the lines between telecom networks, messaging apps and financial fraud are blurring fast.
At the heart of the industry’s demand is a call for a technology-neutral regulatory framework, one that applies consistently across telecom and internet-based communication services. Operators argue that the absence of uniform safeguards, such as sender verification systems, robust spam filters and clearly defined accountability mechanisms, has created enforcement blind spots that fraudsters are quick to exploit.
The proposal is straightforward but far-reaching. Telcos are pushing for baseline anti-fraud measures across all communication platforms, alongside faster response systems and deeper coordination between ministries. Given the interconnected nature of telecom networks, digital platforms and financial systems, they argue that fragmented oversight only weakens the overall defence.
The broader issue is regulatory arbitrage, the ability of bad actors to hop between platforms based on which is least regulated at any given time. Without harmonised rules, operators say, efforts to curb fraud risk becoming a game of whack-a-mole.
As digital communication continues to expand, the debate is shifting from who regulates what to how consistently it is regulated. For now, telecom operators are making their case clear: in a world where spam travels freely, regulation cannot afford to stay fragmented.
