Cricketer Dinesh Karthik’s last-ball six in the 2018 India- Bangladesh match, the move that won India the Nidahas Trophy that year, is one of recent sporting history’s most iconic moments. This thrilling event has been captured in the form of India’s first-ever sports NFT (non-fungible token), through a partnership with squash player Saurav Ghosal. Entitled “Six For The Win”, the digital art NFT will be available for public auction in October, and is an animated clip that showcases Karthik’s own thoughts as he faced down the opposing team in the game’s final minutes.
Speaking on the creative concept of the NFT, Karthik says, “That incredible experience for the India team, and for every one of our fans, happens to be Youtube’s most-watched sports video in the world. This shows what a precious memory it is for us all, and it was amazing to relive it and share it from my perspective through the process of this collaboration.” Ghosal and Karthik coordinated with tech partners in New York to produce the digital art, which features Karthik’s voiceover.
Speaking on what this means for the emerging market of NFTs in India, Ghosal says, “We hope that ‘Six For The Win’ will usher in an era of sporting NFTs. It’s very exciting for us to be pioneers in the Indian NFT space itself, which already has huge success in the USA.
We look forward to establishing its presence in the UAE. Non- refundable tokens are stored on a block-chain, like cryptocurrency, which means they can’t be exchanged or broken down, and you have an accurate history from provenance onwards so that they can’t be counterfeited. There is great potential here for digital art and other forms of memorabilia.” On ‘Six For The Win’, Ghosal also adds, “Between the unforgettable victory that
this NFT celebrates and the distinction it enjoys as India’s very first sports NFT, this is a collector’s dream. We can also expect that its value will appreciate over time, making it a superb investment and we believe day 1 of the auction will determine that growth.
Dinesh Karthik, who is a prolific batsman on the field, is also an avid admirer of the arts off the field.
When asked about what he thinks of the whole NFT scene in the field of Digital art, he said – “I am very happy to be exploring this phase. NFT has caught up in many parts of the world, with a lot of fan fair towards digital art, and I am very excited to be exploring this phase and curious to see how it shaped up in the coming week.”
The sport star has been studying and keeping a close eye on the world of NFT, but is yet to own one for himself.
”There were a lot of times where I came close to buying one of the digital art NFTs, but they somehow didn’t fit in with my sensibilities. Let me see how this auction shapes up and then I will take a decision on how I am going to move forward with NFT”, he said.
With digital art, there has always been a risk of replicas being created in a matter of seconds, but for the same kind of medium to find such a prominence is what has caught his eye and eventually led him to enter this realm for a dive in.
”I have closely studied how NFT works and what the Blockchain technology is all about. The fact that you know who the buyers are over a period of time is what attracts me to this platform”, he added.
The auction will take place online and is open to the public which will be held between October 12th and 22nd on https://rarible.com. The winning bidder at the auction will also receive the autographed jersey that Karthik was wearing during the Nidahas Trophy match.
