(5 May 2008 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Zapak Digital Entertainment and Jump Games, the two gaming divisions of Reliance Entertainment, have announced a tie-up with pace sensation Ishant Sharma.

As a part of the deal, Zapak.com would be creating and hosting an online game based around the cricketer while Jump Games would be creating a mobile game for him.

The online game from Zapak.com is called Power Bowler. This is a browser based cricket game based on the young Indian cricket prodigy Ishant Sharma. The game allows the player to step into Ishant's shoes and play as him wherein he bowls five overs to an opponent batsmen. The game is set against the backdrop of a packed international cricket stadium with the crowd cheering him on.

A user is offered bowling options such as in and out swingers and seamers, straight balls along with special deliveries such as a Yorker which has to be used intelligently. The player has to get the batsman out in the lowest number of balls while giving the least number of runs. The game will be the first of its kind cricket based bowling-only-game.

Jump games has come out with Cricket Fever. This showcases the ace bowler Ishant Sharma's bowling skills to the max. It is a ten-over cricket game where the player opens the over as Ishant Sharma and shoots his deliveries towards the opponent's batsman. The game offers an exhaustive array of deliveries like yorkers, in-cutters, out-swingers and the player can also control the speed and swing of the ball.

The game offers gameplay with auto-updated scorecards and statistics displayed after every over as well as an exhaustive list of teams from across the globe.

Sharma said, "Today the youngsters are no longer content with usual ways of playing a game they want it across all means of communication mediums be it television, mobile or the internet. We Indians are excited at all forms of cricket, for us cricketers are demi-god, cricket is a religion. I'm excited about this new Online and Mobile avatar that I'm donning as it gives me another opportunity to connect with this cricket crazy nation."

Zapak Digital Entertainment COO Rohit Sharma said, " Ours is truly a cricket crazy nation and it is proven from the fact that we have over 18 cricket games on Zapak.com and each of them are equally popular with the audiences. We at Zapak have a record of more than 80,000 users playing cricket games on our website everyday. And we believe that through this association we will create another milestone in Online Cricketing in India.

Jump Games CEO Salil Bhargava said, "Cricket is one of the most popular genres in mobile gaming in India; and now with our association with Ishant, we aim to provide the audiences with much more of their favourite content. It has been a fabulous year for Jump Games. We signed on Manchester United - the world's most popular football club earlier this year and now we are bringing the rising cricket star Ishant Sharma on the mobile screen.

"Ishant is one of the most popular names in Indian cricket right now and we hope our games give another opportunity to his fans to play as their favourite cricketer."