The discourse between Mayank and Shubh Agarwal illuminates the evolving landscape of cricket writing in the era of social media, emphasizing the profound implications of digital platforms on the craft. Shubh articulates his personal trajectory as a cricket writer, elucidating the significance of social media in fostering connections and opportunities within the field. The conversation delves into the dichotomy between traditional cricket journalism and the burgeoning influence of digital content creators, scrutinizing the ethical considerations that arise in this dynamic environment. Shubh offers invaluable insights for aspiring writers, advocating for a balance between engaging content and responsible journalism. Ultimately, this episode serves as a profound exploration of how the intersection of cricket and social media shapes not only the narratives we consume but also the future of cricket writing itself.

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Shubh Agarwal (@shubh_chintak) / X

Foreign.

Hello and welcome to the Last Wicket.

I'm your host Benny and thank you for joining us.

In this episode, my co host Mike chats with special guest Shub Agarwal who has written for ESPN, Crickinfo, cricket.com and Circle of Cricket.

They discuss his journey as a cricket writer, advice for budding writers, cricket in the age of social media and influencers, and much, much more.

So for more of Shub, check out his Twitter handle, hibchintuck.

For now, keep listening.

First conversation with M.

Hey Shubh.

Welcome to the Last Wicket.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Yeah, very happy to join.

Talk about my journey and various aspects of cricket with you.

So excited about it.

Awesome.

Let's jump right into it.

You've had the chance to work for cricket.com, circle of cricket, even Crickinfo.

Why don't you share with how your experience was?

How did you get started?

Experience has been, I mean nothing has been wonderful actually.

That was where, you know that Pune Test happened in Bangalore Test.

So I think I joined during Dharamshala Test.

That is when my career kind of begins.

The circle of grid.

And growing up, my initial plans were to bat like round Robert and bowl like day streak, but none of it worked out.

So I thought during my college life I had this thing in my mind that I want to get into cricket coverage in any capacity that is possible.

What really happened was that I was a 17 year old kid then and I used to love tweeting about cricket.

So having done that, I happened to, I happened to build a lot of contacts organically, like just interacting with people on Twitter and even if it was not with someone who works at a, I got to know people who knew people who were working in grid firms.

So what really happened was it was my last semester in college and I was thinking that okay, if I don't step into cricket in any capacity right now, then my dad might push me towards a BTech life because I had done BTech.

And so I thought if I don't score any job right now, then I, then my dad might push me through engineering.

And I didn't want, I did not want that.

So what happened is that I remember Sitting on my couch one day in front of a TV and I just happened to receive a message Twitter DM from Saurabh Manhra, who was the, who still is the social media manager at Circle of.

So I had been following him for six years.

I don't think he even knew about my existence.

So Sonam was looking for someone to join his social media team for Circular Cricket before the start of the ipl.

And he contacted this guy Ankur, who had become a very good friend of mine.

Saurabh asked Ankur to join.

Ankur said, okay, he's not available because he has other commitments.

So Ankur referred my name.

That is how Saurabh DM'd me.

And I was very thankful to Ankur that he saw the passion in me and he referred my name to him.

Then Saurabh asked me, looking for someone called Social Media Team am I interested?

And message kind of came at the right time, just when I was looking at how to get into it.

So I went to their office which was in Delhi and I interviewed there.

I got an internship which ran till the end of the ipl.

So people click, click on those news pieces.

Apart from that, I used to handle some social media accounts of some headers like lalchandrajput's Facebook Facebook page.

I handled film with Farooq Engineer also I happened to manage myantmarkande Shubman Vil's Twitter account briefly at the start of their Twitter accounts.

So that went well.

But at Circle of Cricket I found out that I just don't want to do social media.

I want to write.

I want because at social media you are behind the curtains, right?

Not many people know that you are seeing, etc.

Etc.

And I thought that okay, I can do long form pieces also, which I used to do occasionally for Circle of Cricket.

And I thought that okay, I want to make this writing my thing.

And I was then again looking forward to make a switch, go to a place where there is a lot more writing work.

And again I was sitting in front of a TV on my couch.

That is when I got a message, this time from Shashi Agrawal who again, who had become a very good friend of mine through Twitter.

And he told me that, bro, there is a job in Bangalore that this company is trying about to start and would you be happy to join the writing team?

And again, it was just the right thing at the right time because I also wanted to move to Bangalore or Mumbai because that is where the cricket hub is in India.

So I said yes.

He put me contact in.

He put me in contact with the relevant people and again, I interviewed.

They liked my work.

My interview didn't go that well, actually.

I was very nervous.

But I remember the guy who fed me telling me later on that he paid me because I also sent him a few of my articles.

He liked that thing.

So he did not go by my interview, he went by my body of work at that time.

Again, very, very grateful to him.

And yeah, so that is how cricket.com started.

I worked there for six years, probably the best days of my life because I learned a lot about cricket.

When you are into writing, you get to learn about things.

You may see stuff on tv, you will write about that, but when you're writing about that, your thought process expands and you like to, you know, just checking out, researching for that piece or one particular piece, you get to know about a lot of other things that you must not have known earlier.

So@cricket.com it was a brilliant time there.

I loved breaking myths and probing my theories through numbers.

And it went for six years and then I.

So, yeah, this journey has been nothing short of amazing.

I started working and yeah, right now I'm looking for my next role.

That's amazing.

It's funny you mentioned Saurabh because he's somebody I've tried to reach out as well.

So it's funny, I tried to get him on the podcast as well, but he was shy about it.

But nonetheless, that's really great that you were able to form these organic bonds and that's really the power of social media.

You mentioned the cricket.com journey and the writing piece as well, which reminded me of a story that, you know, again, I'm not a writer like you or a statistics, but I do blog occasionally and try to keep up with cricket.

And when I wrote that, there was a South African reporter who read it and she absolutely ripped it apart and said, well, that doesn't do anything and what we need is investment in grassroots cricket.

And she challenged my view.

And to your point, that is where it really opened my eyes.

And I was buying into all the narrative that you saw on TV and all of that.

And it really made me think about that and challenge myself.

So I truly agree with you.

I think writing and really thinking through the thought process, getting feedback, all of that is critical to forming your opinion.

And that's just not true for cricket.

That's, I think, true for everything.

Yeah, exactly.

So whatever you write about, I mean, whatever field it is, you learn a lot about that topic.

And I think writing also grows you as a person.

So because you are investing your time into something, into shaping something, which makes sense.

So.

So, yeah, I think editing is an amazing tool to find yourself also.

Absolutely.

I think the, the piece that you touched on a little bit, but maybe there's a little more to expand is sort of the various roles and career paths in cricket.

So you talked about social media, you talked about statistics and then just long form writing.

Why don't you just, first, let's assume somebody young is listening who is probably, you know, like you were in college thinking about careers in cricket.

You know, think, let's assume you're in their shoes or somebody like that is listening.

What would you tell them to do if they wanted to venture down one of these paths?

And also, is there any other path that you see for cricket?

Crazy people who want to make a career in cricket not related to playing.

See, first of all, I do keep getting a lot of DMS on LinkedIn and Twitter also with people asking me, I want to get into this field.

Currently pursuing my degree right now, but I want to, I want to get into somehow after, you know, finishing college or when I start working, so what do I do?

And my journey has been, I don't know, I feel that it has been very, you know, a bit different, a bit, you know, not that orthodox because again, I did not do anything journalism or anything like that.

I was a BTech student who was just trying to get through his exams and pass them on time.

So, yeah, a lot of people have asked me and I keep telling, I keep sharing with them.

My experience, bro, this is how it happened with me.

I mean I did a lot of.

I just used to tweet for fun for, for myself and used to just engage with people.

It happened after six years I got a chance.

So my journey has been very unconventional, I feel.

But overall, if you see building contacts really help you out if you want to get into this.

No, I in, in none of my job interviews I've been asked about what I have done academically.

So.

So that does not matter as much because there is no defined degree that can get you into in this, this world.

So yeah, I think making contacts and doing that organically over a period of time really, really helps you out a lot.

I think as they say in Hindi, there's a Hindi saying that.

So that is what I was doing with my Twitter work there.

And I did not assume that it will turn into something so fruitful at one point.

But anyone who is getting into, who wants to get into any kind of cricket coverage in India or anywhere in the world, first of all, I think they need to find their own niche that what they want to do.

Like when I got into it, when I got into it, I just wanted to get into it and I took anything that was available.

Even if it was not social media at that point, if it was any other menial work, I would have taken that also.

So I started with social media and there I found my niche that I want to write.

Social media.

I think it is the easiest platform, easiest avenue to get into cricket because we all know that how social media has boomed, all of us especially and every IPL team of broadcasters are bringing on influencers on board, etc.

Etc.

So I think social media, it is the hottest right now.

Many entry level jobs are also available there and this is the most frequent job posting that I have seen in my job hunt in the last few weeks right now.

Then comes writing.

I think the value is just a bit going down because people's attention span has taken a hit.

It pays less also.

I mean at entry level it pays less, but as you move on further and if you, if you reach a good level or if you're with a good organization that is consistent, then then you can get paid well also.

But that comes after a while you have to write and writing is a tough job.

So you have to put in a lot of work to, you know, to start making good money if you are a writer.

After that, again, after six years of writing, I got into numbers a lot.

So when I was@cricket, dot com.

I was proving my theories through numbers, breaking myths through numbers.

I found out that okay, this is this numbers.

Building a story with numbers is the thing that excites me the most.

And I got a clear view that okay, I want to get got into analysis which can again be divided in two parts.

One is broadcast analysis.

If you got into places like Hawkeye or Star Sports or like Fox Fox Cricket outside India Crickwiz, all of them are comes from under broadcast analysis.

But and then there is team analysis also like if you get into, get into like performance analytics to get with an IPL team.

That is I think everyone's.

That is my goal at least that in my aspiration right now just to get there because I know numbers, I can derive game strategies, etc.

Etc.

So I really feel that that is something I can do some.

That is my ambition right now.

So yeah, social media, writing, analysis, these are some major avenues in cricket.

If you are looking to get into it without being a player.

And then there are other jobs like marketing jobs will always be there in every cricket coverage organization.

Similarly sports management jobs are there.

Engineering jobs are there.

Coding jobs are there there.

But those are like they are first an engineering job or a management job and then the, the cricketing part comes into it.

You are not really into real cricket.

Into real cricket.

If you want to be in then I think writing and analytics is something that can really, you know, expand your knowledge as a person, as a cricket fan.

Also.

Would you say having you know, you, you mentioned you journeyed your way from social media to writing to, to statistics.

Would you say having the background in, you know, statistics and math in general is important or do you think this is something that you can still learn on the go?

You need, you need to have good, good, good knowledge of math.

Actually that, but that is true only for the analytics part because you will come through a lot of complex number that you will have to, you know, break down into, you know, comprehensible form.

And that is where XFL plays a big part.

And I don't think I'm someone who is, who really knows everything about Excel, but I have, with time I grew to learn about all the tools that I would need while I, you know, copy paste data from a data tool into Excel and then using different formulas there.

So whatever is there, that is, that is going to be helpful for, for me I know that part.

And any numbers, if you are dealing with numbers in any field, you need to have some big, some basic maths going your way.

So that is Something that you can learn on the go as well.

Because I don't think it's very hard.

It's just that if you understand the game well, you know what you are doing, you know in what form you break, you want to break down the numbers, then I think that is something that you can learn the go as well.

That is why I said that degree is not as much important if you want to get into cricket coverage industry.

What is more important is your experience and knowledge in watching the game.

So, so yeah, basic math is important, but still I feel having that cricketing knowledge can take you, can still take you across the show.

One other thing that I've always wondered is, does playing cricket make you a better writer?

Because.

And, and I say that in terms of, you know, like I think about storytelling.

You talked about storytelling.

And one of the storytellers of our generation who's really famous is Harsha Voglai, who obviously played cricket but at a junior level didn't play for India under 19 or the senior levels.

And he's obviously done a great job of, you know, being a storyteller for all these years.

So what are your thoughts on that?

Do you think the playing aspect adds value as a writer or just a storyteller?

Because that's always something I struggle with looking at commentators.

You know, sometimes I think even though all of these ex players have all this experience, they still end up talking about a very lot of cliches, things like that.

So this is something I've always wondered.

I don't know what your thought is.

First of all, I think cliches with commentary, I feel that commentary is a very hard job and a lot of people who call out the cliche, they are not aware of how bloody tough job commentary is.

Because see a commentator, you have to, you have to accept that every game has one phase where the game is going nowhere at all.

There is nothing to talk about the game and.

But the commentators still have to fill in that space with some story or something and they can't even afford to stutter or take long.

I mean just don't speak.

They can't afford to not speak on the, on the money, right.

So it's a very, very tough job.

And I think people just commentators very harshly, I think Wasim Akram and all is a lot that okay, you can still say, okay, you can do much better.

What are with those issues?

And add a chat with in the morning, etc.

Etc.

There are a few others as well that I really.

Yes.

That I really feel that okay, they need to put their homework.

But someone like Harsha, people are like, you hype the game a lot when the game is actually not worth hyping and stuff.

But I feel that if you are able to hype the game during the boring phase or during a dull phase of the game, that is an achievement.

As a common paper I feel.

But going beyond what you originally asked about the role of having played cricket, of course it helps.

I mean even if, I mean even if I'm playing the league and I am in a situation where I need to hit 13 runs of the last six balls to win the game for my team and years later if I'm doing a piece with the bat, writing about a batter who has been in similar kind of situation then I mean it is not the same level of cricket because I played the league cricket and that guy is actually in an international match or an IPA game.

But I can still relate myself to the situation maybe in some, to some extent.

So I feel if someone has played the game they will have a bit more relatability with the player.

While, while, while writing.

There are a lot of different aspects that can come into play.

Like I'm studying for example right now.

But overall I feel that yeah, if you have played some amount of cricket health.

But even if you have not, that does not mean that you cannot be, you cannot be a good writer or you cannot write effectively.

So yeah, it's an upside.

But even if you have not played but you're very, very good at story telling, your heart is in the right place, you understand the game well, you can still go places.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think the example that always stays with me is if, let's say if I'm shown a basketball and I'm not a big basketball fan but if I'm shown a basketball clip of a player doing something amazing in the NBA, I'm sure I'll realize that yeah, that was a good play.

But I don't know how complicated it is to execute that because I've never played basketball as compared to cricket or leather ball cricket.

I've played and I've played a swinging ball and, and so I understand how tough it is to judge that and, and judge length and all that kind of stuff.

Another thing I would like to add is that growing up I, I heard a lot in commentary about the importance of playing the ball late but I was never sure what they actually meant.

But when I started playing myself and I joined academy for a, for a base while as a seventh standard kid my coach told Me that I'm playing very front on.

There are balls which are swinging outside the off turn pw.

That is when.

That is what the commentators meant when they are saying that play the ball late.

Another thing is, as a.

Whatever little cricket that I have played, I used to bowl fast.

I tried bowling fast, but I could never bowl a good defective short ball.

So now when I'm writing and I can see a bowler who is bowling consistently good 145kph plus short balls and I'm writer to trouble him, then I can.

I know how hard it is because I couldn't do it when I used to play as a kid.

So all those things come into play and you are able to relate with the player a bit more.

You can derive the character arc of that player much better, much more effectively in your writing.

So that is where playing a bit helps.

Absolutely.

I want to also take a deeper dive into social media and just managing accounts or, or just writing for, you know, being a social media manager for various cricket sites.

The one thing that is true, unfortunately for social media, is you write something more scandalous or more controversial, it gets more likes.

That is just how the algorithms work.

And I was wondering, how do you.

How have you worked to make sure there's a good balance in terms of, let me make sure there's good, you know, quality.

And we're not just chasing clicks because that unfortunately is something that is getting more and more common where you see not just scandalous headlines, but even think about YouTube thumbnails.

They are all kinds of crazy.

And, and actually the content is not that crazy.

First of all, you have to understand where it comes from, why people are doing it, because there is a need to create.

There's an urgency to create curiosity among masses for them to click on these kind of, you know, YouTube videos or what, whatever it is.

And I'm not against that because that is the basic nature of every business, that you have to drive audience somehow.

But now I think there needs to be a balance with it.

And off late.

Off late.

What is off late?

Like last four, five years, it has just gone beyond the roof in terms of balance in having it towards those scandalous things.

This should not be happening.

The biggest example I see is people misquoting, like, not just people.

I will say suppose a player, a player has said something and it is a news piece, but when it is presented on social media, even if everything is written to the T in terms of what the player said in his PC inside the piece, it is marketed with a distorted Assumption with a distorted meaning of that quote, right?

Like people are players are misquoted by news organizations on their social media handles.

And that is something which I feel is very unethical form of, you know, journalism right now.

Similarly, I have seen some news or organizations which are headlines, like Rohit Sharma becomes the first matter to that is headline.

And I'm like, come on, how can you, how can you do that?

And then there are fake quotes on Twitter these days which a lot of handles fake quotes of players and Elon Musk has, you know, incentivized those booty candles to put those things they are providing in monetary benefit, etc.

Etc.

So I think we are, ever since I started actively participating in social media, I think this last four, five years has been the most toxic time that has gone around on social media.

It is very tough to strike the balance because see, what I feel is it needs to come from people also.

The change cannot just come from the news coverage industry, it needs to come from the people also.

Because we, the news covering people are presenting what the people like to read.

And unfortunately we live in a country where people, most of the people are middle class, where they go, they spend a whole day flogging their ass at work, they come back home and then I can understand you are not in that mental state where you want to learn about the game, you want masala news, you want to know that which cricketer is dating home, etc.

Etc.

All those kind of stuff which I personally feel, I personally am never being indulged in it.

Like ever since I became a math sole focus, I mean what is going on the field.

So I think it needs to come from the people as well that they also should be eager to write like long form pieces about, about math, something that really happened in the game.

It's not like those kind of pieces are not available online.

They are like as much as I know of people who like to indulge in this kind of toxicity, there are a bunch of people who are really nerd level people who are really cricket nerds.

And then they write, they slog their ass to find specific kind of data which is relevant to their story, bring a new angle to their piece.

I mean both you and I are part of this best of Kids subscribe, which I think is doing a pretty good job in terms of presenting numbers and you know, covering this World cup from a very analytical lens.

But again, I don't think it will get as many views as a, as a clickbaity article about Hardik Pandya's new girlfriend that is, that is going around the town.

So I think it needs to come from the people as well.

It's going to take a long time.

Maybe it took four or five years for this toxicity to build up.

I think it may take 5, 10 years for if people are in line, they are crediting the right kind of content.

Then again, it may take another 5, 10 years for it to normalize.

But I think it is something that needs to come from the people as much as it needs to come from the newspaper people.

Yeah.

And on this, you mentioned also influencers.

And this is another piece that, you know, I struggled with.

Like there was this whole, there was this influencer with David Miller after India's recent loss to South Africa.

And yeah, the whole clip I was, I mean, I didn't even watch the whole clip, but it was cringe to say the least.

And you know, as you said, there's a lot of us who would rather listen to individual podcasters, bloggers, people who are doing in depth analysis, spend time doing deep dives like that because, you know, they feel they've learned something.

And.

But I do think like there is becoming more and more space of these influencers and it seems like ICC and all these, you know, organizations, new news organizations are also giving them space.

Even Bollywood movies.

I feel like I've seen random influencers show up in Bollywood movies.

Um, so do you think that presence is increasing and I, do you think that is related to, you know, you talked a little bit about how people's attention span is decreasing with things like YouTube shorts versus the ability to read a long form article.

So do you think like all of that is contributing to the rise of influencers and how social media gets managed?

Yeah, of course.

I think it is directly linked that the short form content that they put towards their audience and then they get these gigs.

And it is something that does not make me happy, to be honest.

And it's not a recent thing.

It has been happening since a while.

A lot of influencers were traveling with the team.

And you know where it, where it irks me the most is like a few days ago I tweeted about my Twitter mutual Masi in Tamalu, the very, very honest journalist who has spent his life covering Jammu and Kashmir cricket.

And he wrote about.

Even as a journalist, inside the press box or in the stadium, there are certain things that you cannot do.

Follow inside.

And then coming back to Mohsen again, he did not get his accreditation pass as a journalist to cover the Jammu, the ongoing grand trophy final, which is a historic game for Jammu and Kashmir.

And he has covered his life, he has spent his life covering Jammu and Kashmir.

So when these things happen, it, it makes you feel bad, right?

When you are sidelined, having dedicated your life to the sport and then you see influencers get such exclusive access to players, some perks.

I mean, you don't want to be salty because these are two completely different field that is kind of attached to social media.

And then what?

This is journalism.

But it still hits you, it still makes you think.

And my, I mean I am not even against the influencers to be honest.

But what sometimes happen is that.

So for example, this David Mirror Miller reel that you talked about and the influencer that has been bracked to mud because of the cringe content that she made.

What?

So I have been following her since 2, 3 years on Instagram and I think she's a fabulous content creator.

But the problem is that in those two, three years that I, I had been following her, there was not a single reel about cricket, no, not a single cricketing joke, anything, not a single reference in the two, three years of me following her.

But rest of her content is very good.

She's an RJ and she built some really nice content around it.

So my problem is if you are bringing influencers on board, bring people who are actually interested in the game.

If you are bringing people who have no attachment with it, as I said, this David Miller girl, she has not posted about cricket at all.

And she is a big time influencer.

So you know that she's not into cricket at all.

And when you bring those kind of people on board, it's not their mistake, but the content that will come out will be cringe.

Obviously it would be unwatchable like that David Miller release really was.

So again, even if you're bringing influencers, make sure you're bringing the right kind of people on board.

That is where it irks me a lot that okay, just because you had a lot of visibility online, this is not your preparing for and this is having going to the stadium, covering matches is something that I, I have held as an exploration in my entire life.

And then someone else who has not covered cricket, who's not even a cricket fan, just gets into it like that it really makes, makes me think about my, my life choices.

Yeah.

And, and, and unfortunately like as you said, like it's two different fields, influencers versus journalism or writing.

But unfortunately like the bandwidth that cricket teams have or cricketers have is limited.

Like they can only devote so much time to anybody outside of the core group, whether that is writers or influencers.

So that's where you know, unfortunately that's where we are going.

But that's a great point about you know, at least making sure that the influencer or whoever the social media person might be is somebody who actually has a background in the subject that they are covering.

Just picking somebody due to popularity is a recipe for disaster as we've seen in recent times.

Going back to statistics, I know you mentioned this is the niche that you found a home for yourself and storytelling through statistics is something you enjoy.

There's a wide range of that.

There's people like me, amateurs who look up Crick Metric and Random other dashboards and cricket search engines that are publicly available.

There are people like Cricketing View and Himanish Ganju and then people at Crickinfo Crickwiz who do advanced, you know, statistics and modeling and things like that.

Where do you focus?

And one of the things that I've always struggled with is how do you get access to all this data?

Because like let's say Hawkeye is something that you know, it's not always shared.

All these boards don't always share that data for each test series.

So how do you work around that?

What are your thoughts about that?

As to again think of this as advice to somebody who's starting off as a, in the field of statistics and cricket.

So what I focus on is mostly ball by ball data and the Hawkeye data data that I used to get because I was, I was working for a few cricket covering organizations and they all of them have access or subscribe to some specific data tools or they have their inbuilt inbuilt data systems through which which is provided to the in house team and they have the access to all that data to work with you during the live.

But yeah, talking about numbers and all.

Yeah analysis and Hawkeye has been like my focus and the ball by ball stuff I mean it actually contains stuff beyond scorecard.

So yeah, when I joined cricket.com, we had the tool at that point of time and I can't tell you, my eyes just widened with happiness when I went I had the access to that tool that was the first time I Had access to such a detailed ball by ball stat engine and the kind of options that were there like a granted numbers on front foot, on front foot against spin, on front foot against a specific bowling type.

This is the hawk eye data.

When it comes to front foot, back foot lengths, short types, scoring areas and all.

This is the Hawkeye data that I'm talking about.

The ball by ball data will include stuff like a batter strike rating for 10 balls.

I think it is a very, very interesting metric to, you know, separate players from one another, separate batters who play at the similar position from one another.

Like there's an opener who scored 8 runs of 10 balls and then accelerates and then there is an opener like when Alan who will score 24 runs in the first 10 balls on an average.

So both of them are openers.

But that first 10 ball strike rate metric will separate will help you segregate them.

I did not saw the glory years of Lance Klusner or Michael Bevin.

And I grew up on listening to stories about them.

Growing up, when I had access to data, I found out that okay, both of them are called the greatest finishers of their time.

The people who may have, you know, started coined this term finisher, but they were two very opposite kind of finishers.

Like Michael Bevin was more focused on maximizing running between the wickets, efficiency, hitting the ball in the gaps.

But Lance Klufner was someone who had like butchering power to just smash every ball to the ropes.

So while both of them are finishers, both of them are very different kind of finisher.

That is something that I understood much later on.

So ball by ball data is something that will help you understand things that are beyond scorecard.

And if you combine that with the Hawkeye data, I think you can have so much information about a player without watching the game.

I mean watching the game is always the best way to follow or to follow a game.

But even if you have missed out on a game, you just, you just go through these kind of numbers.

Combining ball by ball data with Hawkeye will can tell you about whether a player has evolved, he has regressed or what a team tactic is.

So all those kind of stuff comes into play.

This league match between England and Australia.

And England are chasing some 280 odd.

I don't remember they had an early collapse and Ben Stokes is batting he the same game where Manchester Bolts that he occurred to Ben Stokes Bolstoks just back.

So what?

One thing that I found out in that game was though England were in pressure, Ben Stokes was constantly charging down the track against paces.

And that made me, you know, that made me check a specific number on the status that I had that which batter has stepped down the most against spacers in this World Cup.

And the answer was Ben Stokes.

So that instantly made me think that okay, Stokes is a player who is not shy away to even charge down against pacers to create pressure on them, even when the pressure is on his team.

That is his way of, you know, combating through different kind of combating through difficult situations.

I did a piece about after the halfway mark about the death bowling plans of every team.

And how that piece went was from my tattoo.

I had this Hawkeye.

I had this Hawkeye graphic which showed me the pitch map of the last five overs of every team.

And then it was my job to just sit down with those 10 pitch maps and find out patterns.

So and with those patterns I can derive that water each team is trying to do.

For example, the stuff that I found was because the Ahmedabad is so big, 30% a vast majority of the balls were.

A vast majority of the death was bowling for the Gujarat titan was done by Mohit Sharma because of his lower ones because it's a big ground.

I mean hitting slower balls for six is consistently that same previous year was in Delhi.

Small boundaries and he was getting smacked all around the park.

Not 23, I think it was 22.

But he was with Delhi once and he got smacked around the path because he was trying to nail those lower ones in a smaller field.

So yeah, there are, there are so many things that you can find out.

You can find find out some highly interesting trivia as well some nerve level numbers if you are really into it.

I found out because I'm a huge AV fan.

I wanted to see what is the fall short percentage in that innings for AB Tibiliers.

It is only 3.1% fall short percentage for him in that innings.

That is the lowest fall short percentage for any 100 in IPL.

So that tells you that Avilia has played the smoothest knock ever, has scored the smoothest ever.

That you will find that too against Bumra and Malinga.

So years down the line, if you're writing a piece on AB Dev and his greatness in IPA that trivia because you have.

Because I'm an AB fan that is something imprinted in my mind.

So.

So I can again bring this showing that how he dominated people like Malinga Bumra and still had a fall short Percentage upon only 3.1.

Why scoring 133 it is crazy.

It will add so much more to the piece.

So this is something.

I mean this is why I'm so much into numbers.

But it is also important to comprehend those numbers correctly.

Like I see people not considering sample size when they are.

When they are comparing the Indian team itself.

You can see India took a tactical call of playing Washington just because you know he.

He's an off winner.

And the South Africans have a lot of lefties.

It's correct that okay, righties that off brakes is more might be more successful means left handers.

But the point is you still know that Washington Sundar is a much, much more superior.

Sorry, Akshay Patel is a much more superior player than Washington in terms of quality.

Every single aspect.

So just because data says something, you can't drop your.

You can't drop a player who's so far ahead in terms of quality.

So numbers are amazing, but you also need to be careful with them.

And since you talked about the access to converts again, if you are in an organization that is willing to do good work in terms of numbers, it is their responsibility to provide you with a tool where you can extract numbers from rest depends on you.

That depends on your talent, your knowledge of the game.

But I've been lucky to work with some really handy tools.

And you know, which has evolved me as a writer, which made me very interested in writing stuff.

Just add another point.

Numbers also provide a lot of objectivity to getting discourses.

For example, it is very easy to say everyone knows that Baba Radhan is a slow batter.

He's a slow starter in T20s, which doesn't really go well for his team.

And now.

But how.

How slow is he?

So this World cup, before the yesterday night's game between England and Pakistan, the numbers that I was checking was that Babar Hadam had a cited of 70, 75 something in the first 10 ball of his innings, which is the second lowest for any Full member nation player in this World cup who has played more than 20 balls.

So that shows you that, okay, he's not just low, he's amongst the slowest.

And that kind of a battle coming in.

Coming in at number four, they had a Sahib Sadha Farhan up top who is scoring quick runs.

But then Babar Azam comes Salman Ali Agha, who is not.

Who are not natural T20 batters, but because they are slow, that they cut out all the momentum.

So, I mean, you find numbers and then it is upon you that how do you use it?

But numbers can define a story so much better.

Bringing objectives to your argument.

Yeah, and that objectivity piece is critical.

And even that was not as well defined as it is today.

And what I've come to realize is many arguments, particularly with another generation.

I play cricket here and Chicago, and I play with people who are 10, 15 years older than me as well.

And many of them will, you know, in nostalgia, make claims of, oh, how that team was just unplayable, could you just could not bowl spin against a Dravid or a Lakshman or a Tendulkar.

And that's where it's very easy to ground them in, in numbers and say, hey, well, Michael Clark took six for nine against them.

So it's not that they were, you know, they were un.

They were just smashing spin day in and day out.

So I think that sort of objectivity is very hard to argue against.

And it really makes.

I think it just makes debates about favorites and all of that a lot better.

I think there will still be some subjectivity because at the end of the day, eras are different.

So you probably saw the last year or so two of Andy Flower.

Like, he was an absolutely amazing batter and he was in, you know, the best batter of an extremely weak team.

Now, there will always be subjective people who will say, oh, well, he was a great batter in an extremely weak team facing bowling lineups substantially better than his and still doing better.

So he was better than whoever, somebody mainstream, you know, from Australia or India.

Like, there'll be those subjective opinions all the time.

And that's fine.

Like, that enriches cricket conversation.

But the fact that we can anchor it to some sort of quantitative measure really just takes the Conversation to another level and helps us, you know, I'm sure we're going to get to, I mean we're already at an era where people like Jared Kimber will talk about true average and true strike rate and things like that which you can have across, you know, eras.

I just like to add that, okay, so since you mentioned true average and all and so if you're comparing like a Dravid with a Kohli, you cannot do it because the trainings are different.

Era has turned completely upside down.

Odi cricket is upside down.

So true average is something in the metric that, okay, that, that puts you in a place that, where you can say, okay, this guy was this much better than his years in his era and now this guy is this much better.

So those kind of numbers really help.

And that is where maths also comes into place since we touched upon it.

Then make some math.

Knowing how to derive those numbers without any mathematical flaws, it's becomes quite key about again academics again.

Like the kind of PC that Himanish Kanju does, that has a lot of physics involved in it as well.

Like he will talk about when Bumra gets grip on his balls, how much vertical velocity he has lost, how much horizontal velocity has been imparted.

And I have been into numbers, but even I struggle to understand those pieces.

I will have to read the piece maybe twice each parameter twice because it is so interesting.

I want to know that, okay, I, this is something I may not remember for a long time that okay, this is the X, Y amount, XY amount of speed is the speed that Bumra loses or imparts more in the ball in terms of horizontal and vertical tangent of his dip.

But that is something that fascinates you.

And I mean cricket is a game that has fascinated me so many times.

Like I feel that cricket is no less like in real life.

You will read some news and you will be aghast that okay, how did this happen?

You will be startled.

You will be fascinated by real day to day life news pieces, some of the news pieces.

And similarly in cricket also, there have been many instances where your first reaction would be is it true?

I have to check it.

You check it and then it comes out to be true.

So cricket is not much different from life.

And yeah, it is a fascinating sport and it has so many angles to cover.

I mean even if you are watching a game on every ball, you have so many things that you can judge.

You have so many things to keep an eye on like the, the release of the ball, the trajectory of the ball.

Wicket keeper, is he standing up at the correct time, how the batter moves his feet, even umpiring, you can judge.

Right.

So on one ball you have so many metrics that, that you have to observe.

So.

So yeah, cricket is a fascinating sport.

Absolutely.

I think that's where.

And again, I'm not to try and act like I know all sports out there, but I don't know if there's a sport which has as many complexities because, you know, let's.

If we take football for example, people will talk about home advantage and things like that.

And obviously knowing the ground, having the fan supporting all of that matters, but doesn't dynamically change the, the, the way cricket happens.

And that's where it's so different in cricket because India might be playing in Ranchi the for the fifth time in last five years, but the pitch could be completely different and the soil might.

Yeah, it might be a black soil pitch versus a red soil or something.

You can ask.

Ask Steve Smith's experience of playing test in Australia.

Like his first half of his career when he turned into a batter from 14 to 18, the pitches were completely different to what they are now in Australia.

Even think that he's like playing in Australia, which is on mars or something because colleges just spitting cobra many times.

I think the pictures were a sleeping beauty in Australia at that time.

Now it's over most of the times.

So yeah, at the same venue things can just flip around like that and a player's numbers will go upside down.

So yeah, I mean so many elements in the game.

Absolutely.

Shubh had a lot of fun talking to you about all these various roles and career paths in cricket, but I would be remiss to not talk about the T20 World cup that is underway.

You know, I read some of your thoughts with the Super 8 previews for best of Cricket and that was a great article by not just you but a number of different writers came together.

What, what are your thoughts so far on the T20 World Cup?

Anything that has surprised you?

You.

My thoughts on the T20 World cup is the.

I was not really looking, I was not really into it as a tournament works only because again, every 18 months you have a T20 World Cup.

Every 8, 10 months you have a big ICC tournament coming in.

And you know, 5th of February, the WPL final has on the 6th and the 19 World cup final final happen.

And 7th Feb, the World cup starts So there is some fatigue going on about how the, how cricket is scheduled these days.

I was not much into it, but once the World cup started, boy oh boy, it has been fantastic World cup so far to follow.

First of all, with the group stage, you saw the associate teams and again the associate teams doing well might come as a surprise to many people.

And I was.

It was also a pleasant surprise to me.

But if I, when I thought about it, it was not a surprise as such.

There was a logic behind it because associate cricket has the stature of associate.

It has also become.

Has also improved a lot over the last four, five years, I feel has become much more professional now.

So the players are also the.

Those associate players are also playing different leagues around the world.

It's not in ipl, they are a hot property in IL or someone will get a call on cpa.

So they are playing a lot with bigger players now.

So their cricket was bound to improve.

And watching many associates play, you don't.

You did not get the feel like you're watching an associate team.

You felt like there's a professional cricket team out there competing with the big boys.

Even if they are losing, they are losing on, you know, big defining moments in the game which are keeping them sitting in the race.

But you still feel okay, there's some good cricket going on like usa, India by the neck.

Netherlands almost defeated Pakistan.

So again it is a good element to have but not a surprising factor.

India's form in this World cup can be a surprise to many.

But again, if you see the science behind it that Indian batters have struggled a lot in this World cup and I think the reason behind that is because in the builder of this World cup everything was about betting on flat pitches.

Hardik Pandya said about the Namibia game that we want flatter pitches.

But again, this is not a bcci, bilateral SE or ipl.

The pitches are controlled by icc.

There is some grip on the surface and Indian batters are operating in the same mold as they did before this World Cup.

So they are bound to lose early wickets which is putting them under pressure.

So many people are saying it's a surprise, but it A surprise.

Yes.

What do you think about it?

There is logic behind it.

A surprise surprise for me would be Zimbabwe because though I love Zimbabwe as a nation, I know they had the capability and all, but I was still not expecting them to top their group.

And that was so heartening to see that.

First defeated Australia and after that, the way they defeated Sri Lanka, great players now.

Not now, since a few years because he has been amazing in a very, very, in a pretty weak team.

I think he has single handedly almost pulled the Norway cricket out of, out of, you know, out of all the sympathy that they were in and they have made them competent again and again against Sri Lanka.

Also the way he batted was fabulous to watch.

So yeah, not really surprised by much but really happy to see doing well topping the growth and it has been an amazing World cup to follow.

I was not into it before the start of it but it has been amazing and I hope it ends on a high.

Absolutely.

And on that positive note we'll end this episode.

Shubh, thank you so much for your time.

It's been amazing chatting with you.

We hope we get you back and we chat about more exciting things.

All about cricket.

Oh man.

Always up for it.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.