In an emotional tweet on Saturday, Zimbabwe cricketer Ryan Burl shared a photo of his torn shoes and sought sponsorship. His tweet got a lot of reactions from his fans and, within 24 hours, his plea was heard by popular sportswear brand, Puma.
The national team player posted a photo of his shoes with repairing tools being used to join it with glue after a match due to no funding. Burl tweeted, “Any chance we can get a sponsor so we don’t have to glue our shoes back after every series Crying face @newbalance @NewBalance_SA @NBCricket @ICAssociation.”
Soon after he tweeted, his followers started retweeting and replying to it and, in no time, Burl’s tweet went viral. His fans supported his plea and began urging brands for sponsoring the team.
Later on Sunday, global sports brand Puma generously offered help and tweeted, “Time to put the glue away, I got you covered @ryanburl3.” Indian cricketers like Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh are a part of the brand and endorse it.
Yuvraj Singh took to Twitter to praise the brand for its efforts. He tweeted, “Now that’s what puma stands for! Proud of you team (sic).”
The 27-year-old cricketer thanked his fans for their support and the brand for offering their help in less than 24 hours, through a tweet. Burl made the deal with Puma official writing, “I am so proud to announce that I’ll be joining the @pumacricket team. This is all due to the help and support from the fans over the last 24 hours. I couldn’t be more grateful to you all. Thanks so much @PUMA.”
The Zimbabwe cricket team has been struggling to perform well in international cricket for a while now. The International Cricket Council (ICC) suspended Zimbabwe cricket in July 2019 due to political interference. The suspension was lifted in October 2019, but ICC’s funding to Zimbabwe Cricket was frozen at that time.
Zimbabwe will be next seen playing against Ireland in August in a limited-overs series.