Mandira Bedi dons the role of a cricket coach — she travels across the country and teaches how to play ‘air cricket'. The actor recently demonstrated this novel form of the game in Chennai. Built on the motion-sensing platform, this virtual game requires the player to stand in front of an LCD screen, and control a bat or a ball through movements of his body that simulates batting and bowling actions. A player can also choose to field. The computer instantly relays the results of these efforts.
Air cricket is part of ‘Nokia Ke Asli Champions', an initiative staged across eight Indian metros — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Winners of this virtual cricket game — based on the impeccability of their batting, bowling or fielding actions — will get to watch the Champions League T20 finals (on October 9 in Chennai) with actor Priyanka Chopra.
Mandira will star in roadshows — across colleges, malls and corporate hubs — aimed at creating awareness about this contest — Nokia Air Cricket Champions, as well as two others, Nokia Commentary Champions and Nokia Slogan Competition.
For the air cricket championship, an aspirant can either present himself at a kiosk (with an in-built camera and LCD screen) or have his actions recorded through a webcam on his computer. The video will be uploaded on a digital hub — nokiachampions.com — and he has to seek votes for it through social networks. Finally, a shortlist of videos will come under the scrutiny of a jury of experts, including Mandira. Nokia Commentary Champions, staged across six cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata), requires participants to present their commentating skills to RJs of Red FM. This contest — on till October 6 — will have one winner every day from each city. Voting by listeners will prune the list to a final six, who will go on to watch the T20 finals with Priyanka. For the Nokia Slogan Competition, a participant has to send the IMEI number of his Nokia phone to 55555, and get the details of the contest. This winner too gets to watch the finals with Priyanka Chopra.
