In this episode, Mayank engages in a profound dialogue with Abhijato Sensarma, an accomplished Cricinfo commentator and writer, as they delve into the intricacies of text commentary in cricket, particularly in the context of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Abhijato elucidates his journey into cricket commentary, sharing insights into the preparation required to craft engaging, accurate ball-by-ball commentary, as well as the technical challenges inherent in this demanding role. The conversation also explores the evolution of the IPL, highlighting the remarkable increase in scoring rates and the resulting impact on the game's dynamics. Mayank and Abhijato reflect on the changing landscape of cricket viewership and the implications of the IPL's burgeoning commercial interests on traditional cricketing values. Through this engaging discourse, they offer a nuanced understanding of the intersection between commentary, fan engagement, and the future of cricket in an increasingly commercialized environment.

Link

Short Supply Notes | Abhijato Sensarma | Substack

Hello and welcome to the last wicket.

Today we have Abhijato Sen Sharma from Quick Info.

Abhijato, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

We I've been following your substack for a while.

I've also read your columns on Qlik Info and I have been following, you know, text commentary whenever I'm at work and able to follow the cricket live.

And we'll get into all of that but first I wanted to get into your journey.

How did you get into cricket?

Yeah, just walk us through what got you here.

I mean my journey has been quite short compared to especially say colleagues or the people around me at Trick and four.

But I was in middle school I think when I really, really fell in love with cricket.

I was around eight then.

I was watching it with my mom and I remember I was in Mumbai.

So you know, the entire society had that Halla Bhalla going on.

I think if I'm not mistaken, 82 not out.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

Like and, and that's when I, I'd been Sachin's fan for a while where I thought I had this sort of obligation to almost follow him and Mumbai Indians, you know, as a fan of Sachin.

But I think I really fell in love with that brashness yet like sort of brilliance of Kohli.

Which I think is justifiably something that you don't think about when you're young.

And that allowed me the sort of space I needed to really keep writing until I think I got better and better each time I wrote.

And I've had this substack for a while.

Like you said, I know you've been subscribed to me for a while.

And when I was in high school, I think I started because that's when substacks first came around.

And it became this platform where I knew even if a publisher didn't want my writing, I could still be able to write just for my own sake, you know?

And I had always liked cricket and I had always liked writing.

So I think at that point it sort of meshed together where I was like, why not write about cricket?

So sometimes it's a little more writing, sometimes it's a little more cricket, and sometimes it's a little more functional, sometimes it's a more literal, it's a little more literary, what I'm trying to say.

And it struck up a good combination for me where I would have my off periods with the substack and whatnot, but I would always keep returning to it as a source of interest.

And then I just applied on the off chance to a job at Cricken for.

I think they just started this short steam, which is short form content that they have for their app.

And I was young, I was 18 years old, and I had just started my first year of college and I applied and I think somehow they took a punt on me and I got in.

So I worked with them for two and a half years, and that's where I first semi professionally realize that this is what working in cricket might mean.

So when I left college, you know, I just asked, interviewed, I said, could I join the editorial team?

I got in as a sub editor, and I'm about to complete a year at Trick Info at the end of June, so it's just a month away.

So like I said, I think professionally I'm very young at what I'm doing and I'm just starting out, but I have been writing and thinking about cricket as both a fan and a writer for a while now.

So I guess that's like the brief TLDR version of where I come from.

Yeah, that's fascinating.

And it's amazing how quickly you made space for yourself at such an amazing organization.

So congratulations to you.

And I will also admit that before I got on a call with you, I had no idea you were this young.

I read your writing and I assumed a very mature professional.

So that's, you know, kudos to you for being so mature and writing.

You know, clearly you've.

Even though you've had a short journey, as you said, your writing does not show that I'm intrigued by a role about text commentary.

And, you know, I love reading it because Whenever you're not able to watch the action, you're busy with work, you're busy with life.

It gives you so much more than just the scorecard.

And yeah, I'm just curious, what do you do to prepare for this role and is it preparation that varies, match to match, or is it more just general preparation?

Again, I would be lying if I say I've been doing it for a while.

I think unlike say just writing an essay or something about a match or opinion you have, text commentary is quite resource intensive, but I think you need like a professional cohesive backend already sort of available to you and that takes a little bit of time to get used to.

But it's all quite like HTML focused.

So the technical aspects of it in terms of just type in the words and then they appear on the front end for I think not only click and foo, but all wall by ball commentary.

They have some sort of sophisticated infrastructure going on at the back end.

So that's something you have to get used to.

I think at the most, sort of just comms.

Comms level, I think preparation wise, when you're heading into a match you kind of have to know your basics in terms of just reading up on who the players might be to look out for because you're often not assigned to matches that might be the teams that you follow.

But as a commentator you have an obligation that you are informed about what the context of not only the match in a series or say in a world test championship cycle or you know, slightly off bit tournament is, but also preparation goes into the fact that I should know as much as I can before the match begins.

Not because I will head into the constant with the intent of showing off that I have this knowledge, but rather if it needs to come up, then I should be aware rather than sort of sidestepping that piece of information.

Because I'm not quite sure if what I'm thinking of or saying is right, you know, so it's all about laying a lot of the groundwork and hoping not to show that you're putting in too much effort while you're doing commentary because then you sort of almost become the lens through which people follow along.

Like you said yourself, you usually open up a text commentary on Cricken for whatever if you're not watching the live match.

So then you wouldn't necessarily want someone to be very obtuse or be hard to access.

You would want someone who's just giving it to you as clearly as you as they can while also being, I guess, Having a sense of personality.

So all those things are a little hard to balance.

But I think a lot of it comes to just preparing as much as you can.

Yeah.

What do you.

And help me understand like when you said, you know, there's a technical infrastructure that is there, so what is all that is available to you in terms of information?

What are you trying to filter through?

Walk us through your through, you know, an actual ball by ball scenario.

I'm pretty sure these things are proprietary, you know, but I think, yeah, in terms of, I guess general feedback, I think based on what you can see on the front end as well, I think you have a score input from somewhere.

You either have in house scorers like Crick and Forfeit has or you have that score coming in through some system somewhere.

So that is being put in by someone else and not necessarily the person doing the scoring so that all you have to do is there will be a box or something where you have to type in what is happening in that match.

You format it if you want and then you have submit it and then it appears on the front end and it coalesces with the other moving aspects which are automated.

Usually like, oh, if it's a four, then the graphic appears a specific kind of way.

You don't have to interfere there.

But what you have to do is manually describe each ball and anything that's written basically which cannot be automated is where we come in.

So it's, it's not a be all end all part of doing comms from the backend.

Like I said, it's a very sophisticated structure.

Right.

So it helps that way.

You just need to know how to navigate your way through the technicalities.

I'm sorry if I can't go into specifics.

No, that's all right.

I didn't think of that.

I was just being curious.

Yeah, I think the other piece that came to my mind as I was thinking about this is there's the speed at which you have to respond because you know, I've read your sub stack.

I've just.

I like reading in general and writing as well.

And, and I always take time when I'm writing.

So that is obviously not a.

Not something you have when you're doing text commentary.

You have to have a certain pace.

How do you get used to that base of, of things?

And is it just, you know, time and practice or is it something that you have certain prompts or, you know, certain things in mind already?

I think it is essential to sort of get out of your own head when it comes to doing ball by ball commentary because it's all on text and it has to happen as quickly as you can because you don't have the luxury, like you said, of hanging around and thinking, oh, should I phrase it this way?

Should I slip in a fancy metaphor or something?

There are a few basics that I think if you go to Google, if you go to Crickenfo, if you go to Crickbiz, all of them have the things that they need to mention to make it ball with ball commentary, which is where the ball pitched, where the ball ends up, where what kind of shot was played and where did the ball go?

And yeah, and I think the trick is with, I think a lot of writing in general, even if you're writing an essay or something, but especially when you're doing these mini essays, each ball is to sort of know that 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Like these five things have to appear a when a reader wants to engage with that ball.

But how do you frame it?

Now I think that is where, again, like we talked about, you can get in your own head.

I think the trick there is to sort of, for me, always lead with what I find the most interesting thing in a ball.

So, so if the ball jags away viciously at the last second and beats the edge of the bat, then I'm just gonna slip in a sentence for being like, and he beats the bat with a vicious outswinger.

And then I highlight that part of the commentary and then I move on to being like, oh, it pitched on a slightly fuller than good length and he went for a defensive prod of the front foot.

So all the furniture sort of can slip in later.

But what you always need to do is when a ball is eventful, you need to get out of your own head and just get that on the page first.

So it's an acquired skill with time.

But I think it's something I struggled with initially when I started doing commentary, because when you have that formula in your head, you're like, okay, like ball pitch, this, this, this.

And then in the last sentence I would be like, and he swings through the line, sending it over cow corner.

But over time I have realized that, like, especially because you're just scrolling through your phone, the reader's not going to probably get till the final sentence of that description, right?

So just get the most important stuff from in the front.

Know that there are these three or four other things to mention and that's it.

Like you've described the ball.

Don't try to be Too fancy.

So you do it again and again and again and once you've done it a few times, you know, you, you stop feeling that self conscious about whether you're doing a good job or not.

I'm curious, did you actually sign up for Ball by ball Commentary or was it something that, you know, just they were like, hey, do you want to try this?

How did it happen?

Like I said, when I was growing up, I used to keep spamming feedback like I was very neurotic and unaware and I think more than just sort of, I don't know, wanting to like be heard, I think it was a good space to engage with the sort of community that's there in a ball by ball match.

I think especially when it's not very hectic, you know, you could like get used to, you could, you could get used to like usernames that would pop up with comments on crick info on the feed, or you could reply to someone and then that comment would get published and then someone would reply to you.

So I think that was my first taste of how a community might be in terms of it's a very sort of structured thing obviously where you're not just going on a message forum like Reddit or something and you're just saying whatever's on your mind.

You have to say something useful.

But that was the sort of community that sort of always interested me.

Besides the cricket, like the cricket is almost incidental, right?

Like a lot of the matches just play out identically.

But that aspect of commentary always really intrigued me.

So I work as a sub editor and the way the team is, it's very small.

So again, I think this is the same across like major platforms in cricket where if you do one thing, you do the other.

So just because you're an editor doesn't mean you sit behind a desk and sort of grammar, grammar checker, proofread things, right?

So most of the people who are sub editors like me also do commentary.

You just turn up to office with your laptop and even if you don't know, like I'll be very frank and admit that when I started Commentary I was very anxious about not knowing where the fielders are.

Like I had a broad sense of understanding about, okay, that's where cover is, that's where feinleg is.

But if you're a casual viewer or even if you're a very sort of interested viewer, you are not forced to know where like mid off or mid on.

I guess it was some of the more popular positions.

But what I'm Trying to say is I wasn't sure of myself even with the more basic things.

So I remember that I was just chucked into, okay, this is part of your job, just, you know, learn on your way.

And people are very empathetic with that way.

So I would have.

I don't have it on hand right now, but I still have this small piece of paper that I folded up and made a field and then I put all the fielding positions there and I always keep it beside me even though I don't need it anymore.

Where I think, yeah, I'm like, this is part of my job and I'm going to do it and I'm going to be informed while I'm doing it.

So that's something you have to learn on the job.

And I know I've gone on a slight digression here, but what I'm trying to say is it's something I had always wanted to do because of how much it interested me and how active I was in that sort of aspect of the website.

But once it's a job, it's a job.

So, you know, get on with it.

And yeah, when they assign you to cover a match, have fun and do it.

Yeah, makes sense.

The one, one of the other things that I was thinking about is as I was thinking of Ball by Ball commentary, or, you know, text commentary as I called it, but is, you know, there was a time when radio commentary was big and now that I know that you're much younger than I am, you probably haven't spent too much time listening to it.

But, you know, especially for school and in my days, even college and, you know, there was a lot of time when we didn't have access to television or there were no apps to use your phone and stream.

So we used to rely on radio all the time.

And, you know, even before TVs, of course, that was the only way to follow cricket.

How do you think, you know, Ball by Ball commentaries is going in terms of now that there's access to video all the time?

There's all these, not just video, but also shorts and all these other mediums within, you know, short form mediums within video.

What do you see the future of Ball by Ball commentary?

I actually did listen to a lot of radio commentary because I think until very recently when a lot of live cricket has sort of been accumulated under one or two streaming platforms, it would be a little bit hard to access the more offbeat sort of games.

So I loved putting on my VPN and listening to like a BBC Broadcast or something like that.

But I think the difference between what you said about yourself and me is that that for me that was always sort of an option I took because I liked listening to cricket even when I was not watching it.

Say I'm studying or I'm going on a walk, I could just have that in my ear instead of putting all my attention in it.

Whereas like you said, radio commentary speak days, years, decades, whatever was when you were forced to listen to it.

So it had a much bigger viewership.

I think something similar.

I don't think ball by ball commentary is similar because while again, people have never been more able to access any sort of cricket match that they want to in the world through means legal or illegal, I think ball by ball commentary primarily is a space that a viewer might go to, including me all those years growing up is when I'm not able to watch the match like a radio game and see what's happening.

But I think ball by ball commentaries and is a very interesting resource for fans who might especially want to write about the game or sort of follow the game deeper.

Because unlike radio where you have you can't go to a transcript of the radio match later.

Right.

Whereas I think with Ballware World commentary you have a commentary tab.

Again, this is across platforms.

I'm being generic here and you want to figure out if there's been a drop.

You control f a drop and that becomes a very valuable resource because most organizations do not have front end access for common viewers to figure that out.

Otherwise say you're writing a report.

I've seen this happen many times with people, not even from Crickinfo where they don't quite remember where the ball went for this particular ball, but they want to put it in a report, for example.

And I'm talking about professionals here, but I think it's quite interesting that even professionals use it this way.

Where did it go to deep fine lag or did it go to deep mid wicket?

I don't quite remember.

So I'm just going to scroll up to that part of the ball and I'm going to pick up that information.

And if the match is being covered, then that is the only way that you can get that information.

Because Hawkeye data you're not going to get access to from broadcasters or trickviz or whatever if you're a common consumer of the game.

So I think that way it's very, very, very useful resource that even if you specifically don't want to dip into as long as these websites and these archives stay up 20 years down the line because most matches get covered on most platforms now you can just access it.

It's sort of like a historical archive.

And I think in that sense it's a much more useful thing compared to the utility of radio commentary just being like, I want to tune into a live broadcast.

I think in terms of what ball by ball commentary's sustainability is in terms of being attended to when the match is still going on, because that's where the finances come from, right?

I think it depends a lot on what the viewership for an event is because if carols of people are watching the ipl then enough people are going to float downstream where they shut off hotstar or wherever they're watching the IPL and come to wherever you're doing commentary.

I think even Google has really started pushing their own ball by ball commentary.

Like if you just try to Google score during the ipl, you would, you would see on the front end that they have big match cards and then you click on that and you go to commentary.

So if anything, I think there's a recognition that it is a very valuable market, that even a very sort of efficiency conscious organization like Google is aware of becoming something they should tap into.

So I think that way, you know, there's healthy competition and viewership goes up and down and all of those things are above my pay grade.

But I think it points to the fact that even in live coverage there are enough people interested in, even if they're watching a match live, I still want to follow it along on my phone.

It's kind of like having a friend sitting next to you on the couch.

Like both of you know, that shot was ridiculously good.

But you know what, let me just go to this trusted source for cricket that I have, be it cricket for somewhere else and I open it up and then I'm like, oh yeah, even they agree that Kohli played a good shot.

And then maybe I send in a comment and it probably won't get published, but I'll be like, Kohli did play a good shot.

I'm just using a very small example here, but I'm seeing this is where the community aspect of it comes into.

So I think those things are very protected.

Just to bring up another example, which is not ball by ball commentary.

The Guardian has over by over commentary which is, I don't know if you ever watched it, it's quite popular, especially among the UK and Australia viewers, which is where the Guardian primarily operates.

So whenever an Australian team or an England team is playing they will have this system where they do one individual post for per hour, where they inform you about the score up top and then you can send in an email to the correspondent.

And usually traffic isn't too heavy there.

So what all these leading sportswriters in the world who work for the Guardian will do is they'll just copy paste a part of your email if they like what you're saying and chuck it in there, and then that starts a conversation besides how the game is going.

So when you have slightly lower traffic and when you can engage more deeply because you are not focused on describing every ball, the OBO report, which is what those are called, also offers great community engagement and they too offer an interesting archive.

So I think engagement and archival are the two most important aspects of any sort of text commentary that is popular on the website.

And I think it's here to stay because especially in the uk, most of the cricket is behind a paywall.

In India, I think the middle class can still afford it slightly more.

In the uk, you're probably not paying for a subscription to watch Sky Sports or whatever the match might be getting streamed.

So then most people just read these Guardian reports and click in for reports or wherever else the game streams.

So, you know, for people who are sort of priced out for a certain sort of paywall, these things are essential.

So, yeah, yeah, that's a fascinating point.

I, I honestly, I had not considered the community, community aspect of it as much until I, you know, we started chatting because, yeah, obviously I see the comments coming in from people and, and you know, they, they'll have their, you know, they'll be talking about their favorite teams or favorite players or just suggestions or, you know, similar innings that have happened before or something like that.

And yeah, somehow I never thought of that as community.

It's.

Now that, the way you describe it, I was like, yeah, that does feel like Reddit or any other platform, you know, before Twitter went to shit.

That is what I felt on Twitter as well.

So that makes a lot of sense.

And I think the other aspect is also interesting.

A couple of years back, I was just on the side trying to create a cricket database, just because I was like, all these people who write so well, have all this access and then sometimes I'm just like struggling to make a point, even though I feel very confident about it because I don't have any quantitative data.

So one of the people I started the following was this Indian guy who was basically showing on YouTube how to use ball by ball commentary to extract exactly what you mentioned drops and he showed.

This is how you write a Python script.

And me not being a techie, that was super helpful for me.

And this is, of course, pre Claude days, so I'm sure now with Claude and AI and all of that, that can be done with a lot more ease.

But, yeah, it's definitely a very good resource.

There's no doubt about that.

To your point about professionals going to a specific ball or an over and trying to recall, I still do that sometimes.

And then I'll try to scroll through the comments quickly in that innings and see if, you know, particular shot stood out or a particular over against a top bowler stood out, something like that.

So that really makes sense.

And I do hope ball by ball stays around because clearly there's.

There's a lot of value there.

Now that we've talked quite a bit about ball by ball commentary and, you know, just generally about writing, I do want to shift to the topic of the day, which is the ipl.

So the IPL just wrapped up and you mentioned when we started that you became a fan of cricket, a really big fan of cricket, once you saw Kohli play that innings.

So are you an RCP fan?

Should I.

Maybe I'll ask that first.

Like I mentioned earlier, I was a fan of Tendulkar before I was a fan of Kohli.

And I used to live in Mumbai till I was 8 or 9.

So unfortunately, my loyalties.

Not unfortunately, but like my loyalties are not with rcb.

There was Mumbai News as a fan.

Not while I'm working, of course, but yeah, like, I have been along for the ride with Mumbai Indians for a while.

But like you said, I've always held RCB and especially the recent tries with so much fascination.

Not only because I enjoy following cricket, but I. I think it's always admirable to sort of see a professional like Kohli's journey in that setup and the fact that he was there at the end, like yesterday, finishing the game off despite limping on one foot, you know, like it really doesn't matter who you're a fan of.

That's, that's.

That's just cricket winning, you know.

So, yeah, I've followed along quite closely.

Yeah, I personally was hoping, and I've.

I've been a neutral in IPL for a number of years, but I always try to hope for like an underdog team or something which has not won, to finally win.

So I was really hoping it'd be Punjab Kings.

And then they somehow just, you know, lost it in the middle of the season.

So after that and once, once we got to the playoffs, I didn't necessarily have a strong pick that I was supporting, but it was definitely good to see RCB and then the transformation that they've had over the past few, you know, past couple of years since that last mega auction.

Obviously there's a lot of games.

That's like one of the things about the ipl.

It's so easy to forget everything that has happened.

But let's start with some of the things that surprised you or some of the things that disappointed you, something that you didn't expect from this ipo.

I think I was really surprised by the high run scoring.

I know a lot of people have a sort of lots of opinions about, oh, it's getting very boring.

Of course this is going to happen when you bring in impact players.

I don't disagree with that, but I was really surprised by just how quickly and how proportional to previous seasons.

Like even 24 or 25, six hitting, run scoring, power play, run rates have just exploded.

And I think at some level, of course it has to do with impact players.

I think at another level it has to do with the sort of pitches that are being rolled out.

I don't think there's any big agenda there because, like, I think the franchises don't really have a direct say in how they want pitches to play.

Right.

Like Chennai Super Kings with Czepok, for example.

Just found out that, oh, Czepok's flat now it doesn't support spinners as much as it used to.

I was quite happy and surprised since we are on that topic, to also see Gujarat Titans and the Ahmedabad pitch turn from an extremely flat pitch to something that restricted players to like around the 160s, like we saw even in the final and especially as the pitches wore down a little bit.

But yeah, I think the extreme high scoring really took me out in general, besides the outliers like Ahmedabad and whatnot, because it just tells you how efficiently and how quickly and brutally the game has evolved towards maximizing how you deploy your batters.

You might have one extra batter on the side, sure it will give you 20, 30 more runs probably.

But even then, teams are just scoring 230, 240 for fun.

And I think, say someone like Prapsimran Singh and Priyansharya, I think they were the standout for me in a lot of ways in terms of just Being taken aback because when they finished that 260 odd chase against Delhi Capitals the way they just went about it in the power play, I remember I was watching it live in office and all of us just had our jaws in hearts.

We were like, like there's no sort of sanctity with which you're playing and chasing a huge total.

You know, like the commentators used to be a little more somber when they were like okay, this is out of the short of reality.

Now everything is sort of so adrenaline inducing because you know that batters are going to go for it.

I think that just speaks to how professional the game has become in the ipl.

I think the IPL are sort of leaders that way and I think I was very impressed to just see the skill on offer.

Even if there is an argument to be made about that sort of surprise of the high runs going also being a bit of a disappointment for fans.

I would love to hear your thoughts about that.

But, but yeah, that is, I think we can talk about other things on my mind or your mind too, but this is by far the biggest thing.

Yeah, no, I think it's, it's fascinating.

I, I personally, I do agree that it's, it started to become a little bit one sided and I felt that last last season as well.

And you know, just I, I do like a contest when the bowlers are in it and it felt like apart from, you know the, like just with bum right in the World cup and maybe one or two other people in this ipl, it felt like it was so batting heavy that every day you were like okay, who's the star?

Which batter is the star today?

There was, you know, almost the bowlers were reduced to, you know, sub headline which despite being a batter myself, I was like I don't know if that's as enjoyable.

So, so.

And I think especially coming from any World cup year, you could see the numbers have also gone down.

Viewership is about down 20% is what I read.

Again, not something I know all the details about, but it didn't surprise me because I did feel that, you know, it just became sort of a repeat of yep, everything is going to score 2, 200, 220 and then we'll see how many can chase it down, that sort of thing.

And I, I will agree with you though that the professionalism in terms of the game has just shot up in a, in a manner that it's never been before because you saw people who are not necessarily used to being power hitters turning it on, you know, when you see somebody like Devo Sudhuanshi, of course you're on the floor because you're like this is incredible.

A 15 year old doing what he's doing is.

Is out of the world.

But the fact that all these old or not old per se but you know, older than him, people who are set in their ways, you know the KL Rahuls of the world, Jason Holder, all these people, Washington Sundar like all these people who are not necessarily known for a power hitting showing substantial improvement in their power hitting it to me it felt like wow.

The game really is you know focusing on this aspect a lot and maturing in this aspect a lot.

So that professionalism same thing with Nitish Reddy.

I there's a story I read on freak info about his.

You know he corrected his run up by consulting a pace bowling coach and increased his speed like those things.

It's the minutest of details which makes so much difference and you know it just shows how the game is professionalizing at an incredible speed.

So I don't know if it necessarily.

That piece didn't necessarily surprise me but I completely agree with your sentiment of it being you know something that I walk away with.

But I think the piece that surprised me most and speaking of web of Suryanshi, maybe we will talk about individual performances as well.

But Wema Suryavanshi's consistency surprised me.

You know I was watched the Under 19 World cup what some of the other NBA games and all of that really spread reports where I couldn't watch.

And I was expecting him to do well, you know, score at least a couple of hundred or a couple of 50s.

You know fiery Knox Court Knox and all of that.

But for him to score 700 runs was definitely not on my roster because this approach usually leads to inconsistency.

You know, hitting from ball one, hitting, being fearless.

So that just I was just like wow, there are so many batters here who are scoring 600 plus and you know maybe King Kohi is a slight is in a different bucket because he does post power play at least still play you know traditional role but.

But at least and some of the others, Ishan Kishan and all these people who scored a lot of runs, they.

They scored them at such a quick pace that it really did surprise me.

It's kind of you know proving the point that I think in.

In my head the.

The idea of a T20 team was you know of course you need three to four such players and then you have one person who can play anchor if let's say the pitch is not as flat if wickets fall early, whatever it might be.

Rajasthan was using Jadeja in that sort of role often and so that of T20 but just the way power hitting is going and of course Aiden buy impact sub, flatter pitches or everything that you mentioned, it feels like there's no need for anchor anymore.

Like there's zero need at all.

You know, because if you do fail that one game it's probably fine if you can, you know, four of your hitters can.

One of them can have a good day every other game you're.

You're still going to be fine.

Yeah, yeah.

A few things in response to that because I find what you said really interesting and really honest to my reading of the game as well.

I think one thing I will say is like we, it doesn't happen too often but say someone like Manish Pandey being subbed in when a collapse happens on a slightly worn down pitch like as the years have gone by like someone like Pandey would probably be pushed out of the league if not for the impact sub.

And I think, I think it's less of a comment on if you're from a slightly older generation, they are expecting you to play the role of an anchor, but more of a comment on the fact that that sort of skill that Manish Pandey specifically brought to the KK side, they couldn't go into the playoffs eventually.

But I think that impact player role option allows the regular batters to go for it from ball one because if something happens, I think even Chennai Super Kings brought in Safraz Khan pretty early on.

He's not a traditional anchor by any stretch of the imagination but he can play a slightly more tempered role because he's played red ball cricket.

I think he came in at number four and number five when Chennai Super Kings were just collapsing early on and he got out too early so it didn't work.

But I think that sort of a mindset also comes from the fact that you know you have a fail safe.

If things go really, really wrong you might not choose to opt for that battle.

Right.

But someone like a vegasuryo when she works, works because Jadeja is often, I remember very close to the playoffs when they were probably in a must win match or something.

I was doing commentary for that game too.

Jadeja was one of the impact subs despite Rajasthan batting first and then he came on quite late when they decided tactically this is we need like he came in after Archer and Archer played a great knock that day.

And then Jadeja also hit a few boundaries, but you knew that at some level he was quasi anchoring.

So I think having that 12th player allows you to sort of deal with the subtlety that I think isn't the same as, okay, everyone can par hit now because how many like Suryavanshi has had such an awesome season.

No other batter in the history of the game has ever scored 600 plus runs at a strikeout of 200 or more ever.

And Suryavanshi is the first one to do it and he's almost at 750 or whatever.

So I think the impact player option really plays a role because I think also in league cricket the pressure is always on when you're playing the ipl.

But it's slightly less of a pressure cooker situation if you have 14 games in hand.

I think it is for a reason that IPL finals, no matter how high scoring a tournament has been, they always eventually come down to like teams playing a little more conservatively than you usually do.

In recent years, you can make an argument for the fact that no, they still go for their shots, but I think in that sense, like Gujarat Titans faced great bowling, but then they still like really were trying to play shots that were, you know, cross batted but still a little defensive.

Or Sai Sudarshan was trying to take his time and then got out.

Anyway.

I think a parallel to this is the T20 World cup that just happened in India.

India and Sri Lanka both, because it's not like the pitches were dangerously different.

But I think one is the pressure was just so much higher with every match you played that we did see scoring come down just a little bit.

Like no matter.

And inadvertently the World Cup 26 figures on the same pitch number were often just a little bit lower because I think teams tend to play a little within themselves and they often have to carry that anchor player at some level in their team because they don't have that impact player option.

So I mean, who would it be with India?

I guess India is a bad example because they are sort of a very new age team.

But if you look at like Australia, they brought over Renshaw, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, like there were a fair few.

Yeah, yeah.

But they identified that here is a player who can hold up an end for us if say it's spinning more than we expect in Sri Lanka.

Right.

So a lot of that squad composition when you have only 15 players to play around with and you have only three matches and then you might be out of the tournament as Australia found it.

Anyway, I think all those things factor in differently in international cricket when the pressure is on.

Even India didn't like set the world on fire.

They were really good in the final and they went for the shots.

But initially say against the US they were struggling and someone like Surya Kumayadav, even though he wasn't at his best at all in the tournament, why he did so well was that he could hold up one end.

You could say that he's not a traditional anchor, but it's not like he ran away off the blocks.

You know, I think he knew what he needed to do and he knew it would be enough not only against the US but I think even if it was a higher ranked side, he would have still played the same way because there's less of a margin for error there.

So I think the IPL that way is a little different and we should look at it as such.

Yeah, I do.

That's one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of the impact sub rule, because I feel like it just changes the game enough where you know, some of the skills that you need at the international level, you know, you're not gonna produce some of that.

Like even for example, there's been an argument and I don't know how much that is factually backed, but an argument that certain all rounders are not bowling as much after the impacts up.

And while I don't know if that is backed by data, what I do know is before like Shivam Dubey used to bowl almost every time, like it may be an over or two, it may not be four overs all the time.

Washington Sundar now maybe Washington sun there is a slightly different case because he's, you know, playing on a pitch which is more pace, friendly and good shot.

So there's more nuance there.

But even then he's not even being used sometimes for more than one or two overs.

And he started playing, you know, back in the day for RCB and stumbled in the power play.

So you know, there are all these scenarios which to me feel like we have this tournament which is high pressure, lots of people watching everything at stake and we're just not giving people, especially young people who are you know, developing their game, a chance to prove themselves, chance to learn and grow, that to me really changes everything.

And you know, it was a learning curve for him to not worry about experimenting and all of that.

Just knowing that his captain has his back and you know, if he's comfortable he should just go for, you know, back his strengths.

And so things like that are obviously not something you can learn in the nets or in practice games.

So I feel like that is where the impact sub is.

Not my particularly my favorite rule.

But yes, it has made it a lot more batting friendly, that is for sure as well.

I think even Sachin recently said, not a big fan of the impact sub, I might as well do away with it.

I think anyone who sort of cares about using professional sports in a live game as also being a sort of arena of development for higher honors, I think like for example, a lot of domestic cricket, like, I think there's a reason why the Syed Mishta Kali Trophy does not have like impact players, which is because I think there is some sort of recognition.

I, I'm not privy to any sort of backdoor conversations at all.

Like this is all just conjecture on my part based on how I see the game.

I think like the IPL might not be viewed as if it's as egalitarian of you as say former professionals of the game or fans of the game might view it as where I think India does not have a wealth of all rounders.

It never has.

Even someone like Shivam Dubey, he's great at what he does, but depending on the conditions, you might struggle to get more than one or two overs in.

Especially say if his grippy cutters and like slower ones or like medium pace doesn't work on Chennai pitches as well as it used to when they first bought him before the impact sub rule, you know.

But I, I think the.

Where's the commercial thrust of the game?

I think the IPL first and foremost is it might be the tournament in the spotlight and it happens for two months, but for the rest 10 months there is the domestic sort of game to develop international cricketers where they still play with 11 players even in the T20 format.

So I really wonder if the onus is on the IPL to ever make a decision which will not be the most financially profitable one for them, which is how you might say that the global game is often run, even at the international level, and it shouldn't be.

And where does the money go?

How are the World cup structures done and why are they done?

And there's a lot of conjecture you can make there.

But I think what you said about viewership before, I think terrestrial, like regular television, has sort of lost viewers and it has made up for it almost in streaming numbers.

Again, these things can never be that accurate.

I think if you take away the fact that they have banned, effectively banned gambling with money in India, and then I think try to read the slight dip in viewership numbers with that and then look at what the impact player thing is doing to the game.

Do you think most casual fans would be more interested in watching teams play with that impact player who will ensure that they are a higher quality batter than say, an all rounder who can't quite bat as well and then see their favorite team scoring 20, 30 more runs and then see their favorite bowler stub in for him and then also like maybe save like five or 10 runs in a spell compared to having a more sort of balanced out game and appreciating the fact that, okay, they made 170 or 180.

And I didn't get to see as many 6s or as many 4s as I would have if the impact player was playing.

But I appreciate the nuances of the game here.

I'm really not trying to be condescending about who watches the ipl, but what I'm trying to say is people who are deeply passionate about each game and they tune in for like whatever, like 65, 70 games that take place in the IPL, that's not most people.

They will tune in if they're fans of Virat Kohli, right?

They will tune in to watch.

And if Virat Kohli feels more freed up to hit those sixes because he knows that there's an impact player that's going to come in, I'm sure at the back of his mind it gives him the sort of depth he needs in the RCB lineup to play a little more freely, as he has done since the impact player rule has come in.

And I think people do enjoy that.

And people do tune in.

And if they're watching say 14 to 16 games this season instead of 70, then do they feel as much fatigue if their team is playing?

I think the numbers go down.

If you're not as invested in a team that you don't support because you haven't placed money on them, which is an unfortunate way of looking at the game.

But you know, I, I think in terms of impact players in big hitting, I think there is some sort of thinking that the IPL does have and I think Muthayam Mulletanan would back me up.

He, he said in one of the press conferences that like I would have no chance bowling on, on these pitches with these conditions like even the great Mummazaya Molly Tharan.

And then another very telling thing he said was that the commercial, I'm paraphrasing him here, that the commercial instincts of the game go a certain way.

So six setting is going to become the norm where bowlers are a little sort of feel like an unequal part of the game compared to battles.

And if someone inside the system is saying that out loud, I think we can be, that's a positive, that's a negative.

But I think there has to be some awareness of the financial decisions driving those decisions, no matter how we might feel about an impact player rule as more die hard cricket fans because that's not what the IPL is a product for.

So.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a, it's a fascinating point and I, I will agree that that's the general sentiment I get as well that people who like casually following, they love IPL and all the six hitting and people who are, you know, used to the test cricket and used to the initial years of the ipl, they, they feel like nuance has been lost.

And, and so I, I completely understand that.

I'm fascinated by your point on betting.

I had completely forgot about, forgotten about the dream 11 ban and all of that as, as we were talking.

So I'm glad you mentioned it.

I do think that as well as just, you know, a long T20 season with the World cup and, and then now a 2 months IPL has probably contributed to all of this.

I think stadium football, I don't know how that was for this ipl.

I wasn't necessarily following that fees in particular but you know, there were probably some venues that did better than others.

I'm sure places like Ranchi and Guwahati which get fewer games, probably still had pretty packed stadiums.

But yeah, I guess there's no clear answer.

And yeah, sometimes it's one of those commercial things and that drive the game.

But yeah, as, as fans of Test cricket and as fans of, you know, the old way of playing cricket, as much as I know the game needs to evolve.

Yeah.

You know, like for example, I understand why there's a whole thought of four day test matches and doing it day night.

I understand that because it's way more commercially viable, a lot more people can come in and see.

So I understand all of that and I think that is the reality we are headed towards.

I think I'm also conscious of the fact that, hey, if this keeps going on and it just becomes about the commercial aspect, we might end up having two IPLs, you know, every year, which will completely change the dynamic of how cricket is played today and it'll almost go the way football is and it becomes a club competition rather than international.

Jared Kemper spoke about this, I think on one of his many streams.

So I am citing him here where he said that in his reading of the game he thinks cricket does eventually want to go the football way.

Because he said that.

I think he was talking especially about the fact that there weren't a lot of great close contests in this ipl, which, which I think really set it apart as like sort of boring at times.

Like it's great skill but like it's not coming down to the last over as much because there's such a huge gulf between teams by the time they come into the death overs often and you know which team's gonna win.

But he said that if, if cricket does want to maximize its revenue, then the way it has to sort of construct itself is go into this territory where it runs for six months or seven months.

Like this is going to take some time.

Like I'm not saying it will happen at all because I think cricket is fundamentally a very different sport compared to football.

But like you would maybe if you were like on that panel where you make decisions for how the IPL is run, you would want it to run longer no matter how long it is.

And then you might have to like skip playing every day.

Like you can't have one match going on at a time.

What again, what Jared said is that if say four T20 games are going on at the same time on a weekend, like a usual like Premier League sort of setup with the weekend right, then if even one match is worth tuning into, if you're a non fan, then you eventually hope that there's enough viewership that you can sort of sustain the wages and whatnot for the club contracted players for however many months and also earn enough profit and revenue, which is more than they earn right now in two months and make it sort of a sustainable model.

But what I'm trying to get at is what I really found fascinating about that point is if the game goes bigger, then there is no incentive for it to be as interesting with every game as it has in the past in the ipl, where you know for a fact that, like, I don't know, like, think about the first pandemic ipl.

Like, I love that IPL for a lot of reasons.

I was stuck at home too.

But, like, Rahul Tiwati are hitting those five sixes and own over and whatnot.

Like, games would keep going close and close and close, you know, and you would tune in every day because you had nothing else to do.

But now if you're a fan, then you either tune in for those 14 RCB matches or MI matches or whoever you support, and then you go about your day on the weekend, and if you open like again, freaking for whatever app, and you're like, okay, that match seems interesting, then tune in and watch that match.

And then this goes on for six months, you know, And I think that might be where the IPL is heading.

Again, this is all conjecture on my part, but I think that would make more sense compared to just playing one game a day and it often not involving teams that you're particularly fond of or invested in.

Yeah, because.

Because like, the Premier League often has like three or four top teams in contention after a point.

Like, no one's seriously thinking that, like.

Like, after a point, no one thought that spurs are gonna be title contenders.

Right.

Like, there was more fascination about are they gonna get relegated or not.

And that's a legacy team.

But you would still tune in because, like, there were stakes about promotion, relegation.

So, you know, if.

If the IPL expands to a bigger tournament, things.

Things like those.

A lot of things like those might happen.

I just find it like it's an alternative history sort of concept.

I was gonna say.

I think that's gonna be a.

We would love to have you back to talk about that.

Because I think thinking through that, I was just.

As you were describing it, I was thinking it changes so much because today we have the whole uncapped, capped thing that goes out of the picture.

If, like playing for India or playing for your nation stops being the main thing, you know, subs being the focus, then who cares who's Campbell uncapped?

And you know, so the whole dynamic of.

Of all these things completely changes the way auctions happen changes, retentions change.

Because obviously now this is a.

You know, you're probably, you know, you probably have identified youngsters like, you know, maybe Rajasthan will came credit for web of Suryavanshi and want to keep him for 15 years, so that sort of thing will happen.

So a lot of structure itself will change in the game.

So I do think that'll be a fascinating episode to think about.

What if cricket went that way?

But thank you so much for your time.

I know we've chatted a lot and I feel like we can probably chat on and on, but I really enjoyed understanding your role with Ball by BO commentary and your thoughts on the IPL and where where it's headed.

We do hope you come back and we'll find another intriguing topic to discuss, but other than that, it's been great having you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

I had a lovely time.

Hope to be back on again.