Former Indian cricket team captain and commentator, Sunil Gavaskar is all set to launch non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to share with his admirers insights into the milestones and moments of his rich cricket career. Gavaskar's NFT launch will be divided into three series. Launching in May, the first series will be a limited edition drop of 10,000 unique Emblem Artworks. Gavaskar has been involved in the design. "They are based around elements from my career," he says.
Series 2 and 3 of the NFTs will be the designed artwork and collectibles to showcase key moments in the legendary cricketer's career, including becoming the first player to score over 10,000 runs in test cricket, scoring 774 runs, the highest in a single series by any Indian batsman and holding the record high 34 Test centuries (well known as the 34 '100s') for many years. With these NFTs Gavaskar's fans will have a chance to talk and meet with him in person, along with obtaining rare signed merchandise and personalised cricketing memorabilia. They can even have a batting masterclass with the cricket icon as part of the project.
Reminiscing earlier days, Gavaskar told Fortune India how he used to collect photos of his cricketing heroes like Tiger Pataudi and others to paste in a scrapbook. "When there was freestyle wrestling in India and Dara Singh was an unbeatable champion, I would go out early in the morning with a blade where the wrestling posters were put to cut out the picture of Dara Singh or Randhawa for my scrapbook," says Gavaskar. What was a scrapbook in those days, says Sunil Gavaskar, is NFT in today's digital world.
Similarly, says Gavaskar, those who have been my big supporters, who have followed my career but have never met due to the distance, can store the NFTs in this digital era. "If they want something which would feel a certain connection with me, I would be happy to be a part of it. This is how these NFTs have come about."