SG Sportswear has signed India cricketer Dhruv Jurel as its new brand ambassador, anchoring the partnership in a campaign called “Before the World Believed, You Believed” — a deliberate bet on the discipline behind success rather than the trophy moment itself.
The brand behind the signing, Sanspareils Greenlands, has built cricket gear in India for over a century, supplying bats, pads, and protective equipment long before “sportswear” became a consumer lifestyle category in its own right. That manufacturing pedigree is exactly what makes this campaign notable: SG isn’t buying a cricketer’s fame to sell more units in the short term. It’s using Jurel’s own rise, from domestic cricket to the national team, as a mirror for the company’s own positioning shift from equipment manufacturer to lifestyle brand.
Smita Anand, business head for SG Sportswear, framed the campaign around what happens before recognition arrives. “Countless hours of practice, difficult days, small improvements,” she said, describing the years of unglamorous repetition that precede any athlete’s breakout moment. It’s a message built to resonate specifically with a cricket-mad, aspirational Indian consumer base that has watched Jurel’s own ascent unfold in real time over the past two seasons.
The timing lines up with a market that’s genuinely accelerating. India’s sportswear category was valued at $9.45 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $17.90 billion by 2032 — a 9.55% compound annual growth rate that’s pulling in both legacy manufacturers and venture-backed D2C challengers, all competing for the same increasingly brand-conscious cricket audience.
What makes this signing worth watching isn’t the ambassador deal itself — India’s sportswear category runs on ambassador deals — but what it signals about legacy manufacturers’ next move. Companies like SG that built their reputation on wholesale and institutional supply are now investing directly in consumer-facing brand equity, the same playbook that’s powered a wave of newer, digitally-native sportswear challengers. As more century-old Indian manufacturers make that same shift, the competitive line between “legacy equipment maker” and “modern D2C sportswear brand” is getting harder to draw — which is good news for a market this size, and for the consumers who now have more credible brands competing for their loyalty than ever before.
Source: Based on reporting by afaqs!, with additional editorial adaptation and analysis.
