Renault Duster presented to Virat Kohli after success in Sri Lanka ODI series

Renault, the French auto maker, gifted its iconic Duster to the young and energetic cricketer Virat Kohli for his outstanding performance in the One Day International (ODI) series against Sri Lanka. Kohli was declared man of the series for his brilliant performance through out the series and thus, was awarded a brand new Renault Duster for the same. The Indian National cricket team proved again that they are not just lions on paper and showed their might by defeating Sri Lanka on their home turf by 4-1 to snatch the series win.

The relationship between cars and the gentlemen's sport is not new, as Sachin Tendulkar being the first one to be rejoiced with a gifted Ferrari in India and also to be the first brand ambassador of BMW in country. Coincidentally, Virat Kohli also happens to be the brand ambassador of Japanese car maker, Toyota and has endorsed the auto major in the recent 'Waku-Doki' campaign.

At the same time, several other cricketers are also associated with one or the other automotive brand with Indian Skipper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni endorsing Hero MotoCorp, among others. Through a research, it was found that cricketers have a penchant for luxury cars and maintains a fleet of personal cars considering the fact that both cars and cricket tends to pump up the adrenaline.

At the prize-giving ceremony in Sri Lanka, the entire Indian cricket team took a victory lap around the ground with Dhoni behind the wheel and the proud owner, Kohli along with Irfan Pathan on the bonnet. The crowd at the stadium created a world cup final like scenario with loud applauds.

Apparently, the 'price warrior' Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) from the car maker has been received well in the country with more than 6,000 bookings within just five days of its launch. Reportedly, the waiting period for the new model has already gone up to two months. The car has been posing stiff competition to other SUVs in sub-10 lacs category of the Indian auto industry. In order to make the car successful in the country, Renault has offered its new model with a base price of Rs. 7.19 lacs.

Even though the car appears to be a grand success initially, further challenges are awaiting for Renault, including brand image improvement and better service delivery to the customers. To counter this, the French car marque has announced to increase its dealership network from 55 to 100 by the year end. Renault is also considering an increase in its production capacity at Chennai plant, which currently rolls out 4 lac units annually.

For the current year, the French car maker has set a sales target of 30,000 units, which is nearly 20 times more than what it was in 2011. If the company remained parallel with its sales target, a large amount of the same will be dedicated to Duster, which has carved a niche for itself in the Indian market.

Presenting an outstanding cricketer like him with this exceptional car seems perfect. Kohli maintained an average score of 74 runs throughout the series with a total of 296 runs, which won him the title of Man of the Series and much-acclaimed Duster.