Tata replaces China’s Vivo as IPL lead sponsor

Tata Group is the Indian Premier League’s new lead sponsor, an official confirmed Tuesday -- a deal that replaces a smartphone maker embroiled in an anti-China backlash prompted by a deadly border clash.

IPL chairman Brijesh Patel told AFP that Tata -- one of India’s biggest and oldest industrial groups -- will sponsor cricket’s most lucrative tournament through to 2023.

In doing so it will complete the remaining two-year deal of China’s Vivo, which had returned to sponsor the cash-rich league in 2021 after a one-year pause.

Vivo had paid $330 million for a five-year deal up to 2022.

But the Board of Control for Cricket in India suspended Vivo’s deal in 2020, soon after a high-altitude border confrontation with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army that left 20 Indian soldiers dead and a surge of local anti-China sentiment.

The upcoming season of the IPL will have 10 teams after the entry of two new franchises from Ahmedabad and Lucknow.

The mega auction for the tournament’s 15th edition will be in Bangalore on February 12 and 13.