JIO Hotstar

Rohit Sharma stands in the middle of a packed stand, every person around him in an India shirt, and names the teams in India's way: Australia, England, South Africa. Then he names the one that is not a team. History says no defending champion has ever won a T20 World Cup. History says nobody has won one at home. History says nobody has won it three times. He looks down the lens. This is not a history class. This is a cricket field.

History Repeat Karenge is JioStar's launch film for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026, the first World Cup on Indian soil since the men's team became champions in 2024. Directed by Atul Kattukaran for First December Films and conceived by JioStar's own creative team, it made the tournament's broadcaster the voice of a national dare. It is the headline of First December Films' streaming work, which started with Hotstar's IPL a decade earlier.

At a glance

• Brand: JioHotstar and Star Sports, JioStar
• Property: ICC Men's T20 World Cup, India and Sri Lanka 2026
• Creative: JioStar in-house creative team
• Production house: First December Films
• Director: Atul Kattukaran
• Featuring: Rohit Sharma
• Launch: 22 January 2026, sixteen days before the first ball
• Running time: 47 seconds, with a 30-second broadcast cut
• Line: History Repeat Karenge. History Defeat Karenge.

The brief

A home World Cup is a broadcaster's biggest month. JioStar, the merged Jio and Star sports business, held the rights across JioHotstar and the Star Sports channels and needed a film that did more than announce the dates. India were defending champions, ranked number one in T20 internationals, playing at home, and chasing a third title. Every one of those facts is also a curse: no defending champion has won the T20 World Cup, no host has won it, nobody has three.

Siddharth Sharma, Head of Sports Content at JioStar, put the thought in a sentence: India were "playing against decades of never-been-done-before." The brief was to turn that into a rallying cry, with the captain who won the 2024 title delivering it.

The idea: the opponent is history

The film gives India an extra opponent and lets Rohit Sharma face it down in one unbroken address.

• Rohit in the crowd, blue shirt, fans on every side, floodlights and a tricolour behind him. The rivals first: Australia, England, South Africa.
• Then the turn. Apart from all of them, this time another opponent stands in front of India. History.
• Three records, one at a time, as the camera circles him and the crowd tightens. No defending champion has won in T20. Nobody has won on home ground. Nobody has won this cup three times.
• A beat. But this is not a history class, this is a cricket field.
• The trophy in his hands, then in a fan's hands, passed through the crowd.
• Archive: the 2024 team on the podium, Rohit lifting the cup, the celebration in Barbados.
• An aerial of a full stadium at dusk, the two lines written across the stands in the crowd itself: History Repeat Karenge. History Defeat Karenge.
• End card: ICC Men's T20 World Cup India and Sri Lanka 2026, starts 7 Feb, JioHotstar and Star Sports.

The trick is in the two verbs. Repeat history means win again, as in 2024. Defeat history means break the three records that say you cannot. The line holds both, and the film is built so that the audience hears the second meaning arrive.

A tournament promo usually sells the fixtures. This one sells a fight the fixtures do not list.

Rohit as the voice

The film asks nothing of Rohit Sharma except to speak plainly, and it puts him where a captain never stands: in the stands, shoulder to shoulder with the people who watch. He does not act. He counts the records on his fingers and dismisses them. The trophy is handed to him and he hands it on. The authority comes from the fact that he is the man who lifted it eighteen months earlier, and the film cuts to that footage the moment he says the word field.

The crowd and the stadium

The film is one location, a stadium, seen in two ways: from inside the crowd, close on Rohit with hundreds of India shirts around him, and from the air, the whole bowl full at dusk with the campaign line spelled out in the stands. The second image is the campaign's poster and the film's last word before the card. The close work keeps the crowd tight around the captain so that every cut feels like the country leaning in.

Where it sat

• 11 January 2026: JioStar opens the campaign with a film in which India's women's world champions, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma and Deepti Sharma, pass the baton to the men.
• 22 to 23 January 2026: History Repeat Karenge launches on JioHotstar and Star Sports, with coverage in afaqs, Adgully and Storyboard18.
• 27 January 2026: First December Films publishes its cut.
• 7 February 2026: The tournament begins, and JioStar reports its biggest ever opening day for a T20 World Cup.

First December Films and Hotstar

The studio's relationship with the platform goes back to its first cricket season. In March 2016 First December Films made the Vivo IPL Dildar digital film for Hotstar with Atul Kattukaran directing and music by Amit Trivedi, when Hotstar was a year-old app streaming its first IPL. Ten years on, the same director made the film for the same platform's first home World Cup as JioHotstar.

What the film proves

This is the reference to reach for when a brief needs any of the following:

• a sports broadcast promo built on an idea rather than a fixture list
• a national cricketer directed to speak, not perform
• a crowd film with the star inside the crowd
• a campaign line delivered in both dialogue and a single hero image
• a broadcaster brand film turned around for a tournament date

See more of our work, the director's reel and credits, or send us a script and a date.

Credits

• Client: JioStar, for JioHotstar and Star Sports
• Creative: JioStar in-house creative team
• Production house: First December Films
• Director: Atul Kattukaran
• Executive Producer: Ganesh Pareek
• Featuring: Rohit Sharma
• Year: 2026