IPL team Gujarat Titan’s star opener Shubman Gill has emerged as the ‘Most liked Emerging Cricketer’ of the season, according to a report by Hansa Research.

As per its ‘IPLomania 2023’ report, owing to the consistency and entertainment qualities in the recently concluded IPL season, Gill was rated the most liked player, followed by Matheesha Pathirana, Rinku Singh and Yashaswi Jaiswal.

Gill, 23, is now ranked 5th in the ‘Favourite Players Ranking’, up from 69th in IPL 2022. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Hardik Pandya continue to retain the top spots.

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“Some of the key factors that played a pivotal role leading to the ‘likeability’ spike include consistency in performance, providing joy and entertainment to viewers, risk-taking ability among others,” the report said.

While 60% of the survey’s respondents felt that Gill was ‘consistent with his performance’, 51% vouched for Rinku Singh’s ‘self-belief and risk-taking instincts’ during the matches. Around 52% felt that Matheesha Pathirana ‘stepped just when the team needed him, as per the study. The report highlighted that MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings had the maximum audience support. Close to 29 per cent of IPL viewers supported CSK as against 16 per cent in the last year. Leading CSK its fifth IPL title, Dhoni was named the ‘most favourite captain’ followed by Rohit Sharma of Mumbai Indians and Hardik Pandya of the runners-up, Gujarat Titans.

The report also found that various brands associated with the Indian Premiere League grew in popularity, with Dream11 emerging as the ‘Most Recalled Brand’, followed by Tata Neu, My11Circle, and Airtel 5G.

Around 34 per cent of respondents preferred watching IPL on TV, 10 per cent on OTT and 56 per cent on either of the platforms.