MS Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya In Same Team To Back New Cricket Game

Jasprit Bumrah, MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya [Source: AFP]

Cricket is one of India’s biggest and most-watched sports in the country. The massive fan following has led multiple organisations to build cricket games around it.

From mobile games to PC consoles, cricket games have been a favourite for many. Now, Indian cricketers MS Dhoni, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah and Shreyas Iyer have joined hands with LightFury Games, a game-tech studio that is projecting to build a mega E-Cricket gaming title.

The game tech studio, managed by Karan Shroff, reported the involvement of the mega Indian cricketers alongside Ravindra Jadeja, Tilak Varma and Sai Sudharsan, who have participated in a funding round.

LightFury Games Bags Mega Investment For Exclusive AAA Title

On April 23, LightFury Games raised $11 million in funding from investors to expand its massive-budget cricket game. 

Notably, the 2024-founded company has V3 Ventures, Mixi, Blume Ventures, and Times Internet as its investment partners and aims to develop an AAA title with over 100 employees.

Interestingly, AAA titles require a lot of complex work in graphical processing and visual enhancements of in-game models, which brings them closer to reality. 

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While Cricket 07 is one of the most popular PC games ever, the quality of the cricketers’ models and overall graphics is outdated as of 2026.

LightFury Games aims to build on this massive success in the cricketing genre in gaming, with even mobile games reaching over 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store and App Store.

MS Dhoni and Bumrah Shares Opinion On E-Cricket

MS Dhoni has noted this discrepancy in the quality of cricket games and has backed the studio in building a better, much higher-quality title.

“I’ve seen a lot of cricket games over the years, and there’s always been something missing. When LightFury showed me what they were working on, I felt they were trying to close that gap," said MS Dhoni as quoted by Moneycontrol.

"It’s a big undertaking, building something like this out of India for a global audience. I’m here to contribute what I can from my time in the game, and make sure the details hold up. The rest is up to them, and from what I’ve seen, they’ll do a good job,” he added.

Jasprit Bumrah, who also got a glimpse of E-Cricket from the founders, expressed a positive, excited response to the game's development.

“Cricket is a game of fine margins, and that’s what stood out to me about E-Cricket. The focus on detail and authenticity is impressive. I’m happy to back a team that is thinking deeply about the sport and building something meaningful from India,” Bumrah said.

The CEO was also excited to feature Dhoni in the AAA title exclusively for the first time ever. "This is likely the first time MS Dhoni is appearing in a cricket game, and he is going to be exclusively on our game," Shroff said.

Features And Gameplay Experience Of E-Cricket

E-Cricket is set to be a multiplayer experience, along with a ‘Solo’ campaign level experience, too, where players will be able to play Quick Matches.

The game will be developed by Unreal Engine 5 and will be released on Android and iOS devices initially, with broader strategies to roll out on PC and consoles also in the pipeline.

"We have built all the assets in the highest fidelity, so we can easily port them to console and PC," Shroff said.

E-Cricket will directly compete with Dream Sports' Dream Cricket, Krafton-owned Nautilus Mobile's Real Cricket, and Nazara Technologies-owned Nextwave Multimedia's World Cricket Championship, using the technology they plan to incorporate.

"Over the next 12 to 18 months, the focus is going to be entirely on E-cricket. After that, we will start diversifying and accelerating onto different IPs," Shroff said.

When will E-Cricket be released?

The title will have real-world graphics and heavy physics-led gameplay. Strategic batting and bowling systems will be designed to enhance the gaming experience. Another star feature will be dynamic AI commentary and a broadcast-style presentation to give every match a unique feel. 

All of these heavy inclusions demand time and as quoted by Shroff, an year or half will be required to get going from the scratch to make it one of India's biggest cricket games.

As of now, no release date for E-Cricket has been confirmed by the CEO. LightFury’s eCricket is slated for release in 2026 on mobile.

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