For all those IPL fanatics out there who are already facing withdrawal symptoms because of the imminent end of the tournament, dream11.com is a perfect getaway.
Dream team
The major feature of this site is the online game Fantasy Cricket where users are given a budget of 100 crores to create their fantasy team, consisting of real players. Users score points depending on how those players perform in real life matches, and compete with the cricket community for recognition as the best fantasy cricket team manager. In a nutshell — you are the owner, coach and captain all rolled in one and the best team wins a cash award at the end of the tournament. This game is similar in its design to the online game Super Selector on a popular sports website.
The homepage gives you the latest news, results and the main rankings. There is up-to-date news feed on the various live matches going on across the globe. There is also a section dedicated to the Fantasy Cricket game which features the top five teams of the tournament. One section concentrates on the top leagues while another gives information about the five most valuable players you can select for your team. The match schedules are also displayed prominently which enables you to keep your team up to date so that you don't miss out on any scoring opportunities in your league.
Live scores is one of the best features that need to be highlighted because it gives you the scores as they happen, organised by time. This live web feed is a great way to keep up speed in the office or if you don't happen to have the luxury of access to online video action via youtube. Minute by minute play can be followed via the updates on the live system.
Variety of info
Cricket as we know is a statistician's delight. Information on the players both in their profiles and under the Fantasy Profile is impressive. There is a huge amount of multimedia content in the guise of casual games which really livens things up, and means you can end up spending quite some time on the website. Though most of the games are similar where the batsman just clicks the mouse to the send the ball over the boundary, I found a Mortal Kombatesque game — Cricket fighters, where you fight an online avatar with weapons like stumps and cricket bats. Not very adrenalin pumping, but a brief escape from monotony.
Dream11.com does a good job of covering all the bases, easy to dip into for some latest scores or real time action, and with deeper content for the real cricket enthusiast.
Krishna Kumar is a B.E ECE student of RMK College .
