Through the contact programme, the channel reached out to approximately 4,00,000 children. “Irfan was a great draw for the contest and the students were really excited at the prospect of meeting him. Both the schools and kids are very eager to meet this India’s greatest cricket sensation,” said AXN & Animax assistant vice president sales and marketing Rohit Bhandari.

The winning schools were selected based on the highest number of entries generated from each school. Nearly, 7,664 entries were received from New Cambridge High School, Bangalore, which is also the school with highest responses in the country.

While, the other schools that would get to meet with Irfan Pathan are Sacred Heart Boys School from Bangalore, St. Joseph High School (Colaba) and Holy Name High (Fort) from Mumbai and Kalka Public School and Cambridge Foundation School from New Delhi.

Through Get Irfan to School contest the students had to answer a simple question that was featured on Animax and also name their favourite character on the channel.

Through the contest, the Animax character Astro Boy, the robot emerged as the most popular character amongst school kids. While, Daigunder, Hungry Heart and Cyborg Kurochan also emerged as the other popular characters.

In a bid to promote the animation industry, the media release says that Animax has also invited all the 500 participating schools to nominate two of their most deserving students to participate in an animation workshop conducted by a leading animator. Each of the winning school will also get a personalised cricket bat from Irfan.