Media, Management, Money, Mentorship: Cricketing paralysis no longer a death knell as booming ecosystem lays fertile ground for pivots
There is no dearth of rags-to-riches tales in sport, however the opposite is also not uncommon. Decent performers are sometimes forced to endure the pangs of poverty, resorting to menial jobs after the shine of their medal wears off, literally and figuratively. Pushpa Minj, a para-ball thrower who won three golds internationally, now sells vegetables under the Kadru Flyover in Ranchi to pay off debts. An erstwhile state champion in athletics, Deepak Kumar operates a sugarcane juice cart in Punjab’s Fazilka district. Once a national-level archer, circumstances have brought Buli Basumatary to the road in Assam’s Chirang, with oranges replacing the bow and string in her hands.
Even cricketers, the relatively well-paid lot among sportspeople, aren’t immune to decay. Indian Test wicketkeeper Janardan Navle faced severe hardship in his final days, working as a watchman at a sugar factory in Pune. Herbert Chang earned a solitary cap for West Indies in 1979 only to end up in a coal bunker. England all-rounder Adam Hollioake was declared bankrupt. An ordinary season or two can activate the perform-or-perish nature of the game, and elbow to the financial margins those who dedicated their entire existence to the grind.
The silver lining is that cricket’s popularity has opened up the ecosystem to an extent where undertaking the professional path is no longer considered a death or glory mission. Following a tunnel-visioned effort to make it big if the stars don’t align somehow, the safety net has grown wide enough to catch the hustlers on the freefall. Before getting into the beneficiaries of this honeycomb-like structure which is ameliorating the risk appetite of teenagers, parents and coaches alike, it’s vital to establish the premise of its evolution.
Kapil Dev leading India to a historic victory over giants West Indies in the 1983 World Cup final at Lord’s was an obvious catalyst. Economic liberalization tailgated the epoch-making win back home as the monopoly of public service broadcaster Doordarshan began to fade, giving way to a competitive multi-channel sphere. Coca-Cola returned to India, spending 10 crores to secure the title bid of 1996 World Cup, an event jointly hosted in the subcontinent. At the turn of the century, India’s population reached a billion as companies endeavoured to take first-mover advantage and capitalize on the newfangled purchasing power. What better route to boost visibility than associating their identities with cricket which, in this part of the world, is not merely a contest between bat and ball but a religion in itself.
Loosening the purse strings for sponsorship of the national team, Sahara India Parivar ‘’eclipsed the deal between Vodafone and ECB and the Ansett partnership with Australian board”, as per officials. Their logo was emblazoned on the chest and stronger arm of each Indian jersey, and when Stuart Broad was rendered collateral damage in an altercation between Yuvraj Singh and Andrew Flintoff at the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup in South Africa, Sahara was immortalized in history. The fruitful alliance made corporates, high net-worth individuals and Bollywood sit up and take notice, leading to astronomical franchise valuations as Lalit Modi masterminded the IPL. Star India’s five-year media rights deal worth $2.5 billion factored in, BCCI went from a national governing body to an administrative behemoth whose brainchild has come to contribute ₹11,000 crore to India’s GDP.
IPL has ushered cricket beyond metropolitan hubs, providing major media exposure and infrastructure development to cities like Mohali, Dharamshala, Guwahati, Indore and Cuttack, while the riches have changed the complexion of the domestic circuit. In the 2023-24 season BCCI organized 1846 matches, with the total exceeding 2000 if age-group fixtures are taken into account. From logistics to multimedia to support staff, there are several cogs required for this machinery to function, and individuals steeped in cricket fit the bill as far as deployment is concerned.
On the park, the sheer volume of participation and performance results in an enormous talent pool, which explains why the Women’s T20 Challenge that was a single-match affair morphed into an arrangement of five franchises competing in a double round-robin format. Moreover, BCCI has emulated New Zealand and Australia to offer the centrally contracted women cricketers the same paycheque as their male counterparts.
Snehal Pradhan, former pacer and co-author of the 2020 Equal Hue report that dissected the female experience of playing cricket in India, got in touch with Ananya Upendran who represented Hyderabad for a decade and then moved to Sikkim where she opened the batting and bowled one change before announcing her retirement in the pandemic. ‘’The GoSports Foundation was going to start an excellence program and she thought I would be an ideal candidate,’’ Ananya recollects. ‘’When I read the job description, the first thing I thought was this was written for me because it was exactly what I wanted to do.’’
Her eyes lit up going through the responsibilities section because of how the year 2017 went personally; a juncture that was supposed to be a launchpad to higher honours turning out to be a trainwreck in terms of mental health. Ananya’s journey, kicking off from a camp run by Mithali Raj’s father in Hyderabad in 2003, had progressed to selection for India A but the sport that she adopted upon marvelling at Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting’s Australian brigade had started consuming her all ends up.
In 2015, women’s cricket saw a surge in competition with a record ten bilateral series. Australia broke the Ashes hoodoo in England, Pakistan scripted their best ODI run chase hitherto, West Indies won the T20 World Cup riding on 18-year-old Hayley Matthews’ whirlwind fifty and India celebrated their maiden bilateral series win over Australia. The tectonic plates were shifting, and being an observant student of the game Ananya knew the foot needed to be on the gas pedal if she harboured aspirations of joining the fancied club.
‘’I’d hit the ground running at 6am, train with the team till 8.30, then do a personal session with my fitness trainer till 10.30. I returned to the nets at 2.30pm, did skill work with my coach till 4.30 and participated in the team session henceforth. On the rest day, I’d reflect on the week and analyze where the scope for improvement is. So basically I was never switching off from cricket,’’ Ananya details.
‘’I did very well for Hyderabad in 2016-17, and got picked for South Zone and Challengers. I played every single tournament, bowled my quota, batted, although by the end of the season, I really felt burnt out. I had asked my coach for a break, even though there was an India A camp around the corner.’’
She advised against a breather, apprehensive Ananya might fall out of contention. ‘’Of course, that is a big worry given how cut-throat cricket is in India. So I guilted myself into coming to training,’’ Ananya laments.
The lack of psychological stability and corresponding motivation was evident. ‘’I had regular panic attacks. My heart rate was 150 just sitting down in my room. I failed the yo-yo and 2k trial. I hated my time there. It should have been a point where I was really excited to be training with the best in the country and actually vying for a place in that Indian team. Instead I would end up crying after every session. Looking back, I wish I had taken that break. But when you’re hungry and ambitious, you don’t want to give anyone a sniff,’’ Ananya reasoned.
‘’That was the start of a very difficult relationship for me with cricket and it kept going downhill. In fact a couple of years later, I became suicidal. I wasn’t getting picked anywhere. I wasn’t enjoying the game. My decision to step away was essentially me choosing myself over my career.’’
Abandoning a project that you’ve put your heart and soul into is never easy, notwithstanding the fact that cricket had driven Ananya to the edge. Sporting pursuits can be so demanding that for serious folk complete lifestyles and personalities may revolve around their vocation, without a hint of hyperbole.
Tying shoelaces, warming up, unpacking the kit bag, marking guard at the crease, applying sweat to shine the new ball, diving at backward point to save a four, the banter in the slip cordon, the customary handshakes, the toil behind the scenes, the agony of rehab, the gym sessions, the nutritious food, the comeback trails, the excruciating defeats, the sweet taste of triumph. The blood, the sweat, the tears. The warp and weft of a sport is ingrained into the very soul of its practitioners, and withdrawal symptoms hit them harder than a caffeine addict.
England’s talisman in Ashes 2005, Flintoff echoed the sentiments. ‘’Ever since I was six years of age all I ever wanted to do was be a cricketer. I was fortunate I did that until I was 31. It gave me an identity. Once it was stripped away it took everything,’’ the flamboyant all-rounder spoke on the BBC Radio podcast, narrating that post an injury-enforced exit he struggled with filling the occupation box in airplane forms. ‘’I was a cricketer but what am I now? Mentally that question took a toll on me. My mind does not accept the fact that I cannot play cricket anymore. I’m probably suffering from cognitive dissonance,’’ he added, revealing that he tried, in vain, to use alcohol and travel as a means to escape a life deeply embedded in his psyche. ‘’The problem was wherever I went I took all these thoughts and feelings with me.’’
For Ananya though, visiting her sister in the United States did the trick as she cooked and cleaned her way out of cricketing saturation. It was, however, only a matter of time before the foe reappeared as a friend. An opportunity to spearhead Equal Hue meant drawing from her learnings as a player and transforming personal adversity into a platform for meaningful change.
‘’Towards the end of my career, one of the things that kept me going was working with youngsters to solve different problems on and off the field and helping them build ladders to where they want to get,’’ Ananya said. ‘’Growing up I was good at problem-solving, but I don’t think I ever had direction on how to get where I wanted to. I tried to piece the puzzle together myself.’’
‘’Also considering everything I went through with mental health, I never wanted anyone to feel like that and think they’re alone in those battles. I make sure that players understand that there is a safe space and that cricket is not the be all and end all.’’
Kashvee Gautam, Titas Sadhu and Shweta Sehrawat have received assistance from Equal Hue, with Ananya’s inputs crucial to their smooth transitions. ‘’Jemimah Rodrigues is a superstar but in her first two years of international cricket, she averaged 19 in ODIs,’’ she pinpoints. ‘’I wanted to make sure that when these girls make the leap, they don’t feel like a deer in the headlights. You saw that in the 2017 World Cup and the 2020 final where India let the game slip. Suddenly everything’s so big, full MCG, Alyssa Healy is coming at us and we don’t know what to do. So it’s about bridging that gap by providing access and support to these players.’’
Diving deeper into mentorship and player development, Ananya is entering her fourth season as a talent scout for Delhi Capitals, a pivot she credits presenter Kass Naidoo for. At her behest, she travelled to cover the 2023 U-19 Women’s World Cup in South Africa and managed to rekindle her observational side via that stint. ‘’On one hand, involvement with budding careers gives me immense satisfaction. To see these girls live out their dreams and achieve success is fantastic,’’ Ananya exclaims.
‘’On the other hand, I’m collaborating with senior professional athletes, the likes of Annabel Sutherland and Meg Lanning. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be sitting next to a Marizanne Kapp who has forever been my inspiration. Breathing the same air as them feels surreal,’’ she fangirls, demonstrating how much the quality of life enhances when cricketers remain a part of the fraternity and get a chance to smoothen its rough edges using their wherewithal.
With the reinvention ensuring a sustainable revenue stream, Ananya concurs that ‘’there’s so much more incentive nowadays to enter the game and stay in it.’’ ‘’There are a lot of roles popping up in so many different avenues. Head coach, an assistant coach, a fielding coach, an operations manager, a physiotherapist, a strength and conditioning trainer, a throw-down specialist, a video analyst, a social-media handler. I’d never envisaged a foray into talent scouting! But again, it came through what I’m doing with Equal Hue,’’ Ananya elucidates how work begets adjacent work once cricketers prance into the periphery banking on their accumulated wisdom. ‘’It’s been a long ride. I feel a huge amount of gratitude to still be engaged with cricket and to have built the relationships I have with the people around and through the game.’’
Ananya operated on a higher plane and thus managed to carve an awesome second innings for herself, but is the cricketing ecosystem equally benevolent to those who couldn’t get as far? Rithin Christy donned the mitts in Saint Joseph’s boys high school. Initially it was all fun and frolic, but soon it struck him that acrobatics behind the stumps might fetch him a living if he takes the diligence up a notch. ‘’I was a big round guy, 90-95 kilos. I realized I need to be fitter if I wanted to go to the next level,’’ he remarks. The keeper-bat advanced to first division cricket with Bangalore Occasionals, then plying his trade for reputed institutions such as Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Rail Wheel Factory and Central University. ‘’For a good seven years, I prioritized cricket over everything else,’’ Rithin avers. Despite leaving no stone unturned, the slow growth compelled him into a blunt assessment of where he stood as a Karnataka hopeful.
‘’In sport, you’ll have to come to a realization. Either you’ve got it or not. Well, I was putting in the hard yards but performances do count.’’ he assessed frankly. ‘I’d hit a flat rock in terms of progression and some key metrics had dropped. It was a very tough decision but I had clarity that right now, this doesn’t seem to be a feasible career.’’
Bangalore is the pioneer of India’s box cricket revolution given housing and industrialization came at the expense of parks and greenery. The concept of indoor turf surfaces that are now omnipresent, funneling even to remote towns, bloomed with a 7,000 square-feet arena built by Shree Harsha who was at the vanguard of the corporate cricket culture in India. Safe to say, the idea has proved to be a smash hit, with Rush becoming the premier recreational sports chain in the country. Rithin is instrumental to its steady rise, onboarding the company in 2020 after finishing his sports management course from MBA ESG, which constitutes a brief exchange program in France.
‘’10 years ago, we just hosted events. Today, Rush has 19 centres sitting on 8.5 lakhs square feet of land,’’ he updates. The business milestones aside, what truly warms the cockles of Rithin’s heart is the air of delight as office-goers circumvent their busy schedules to reunite with the hobby that the rat race swallowed whole.
‘’I am privileged to be born in India where cricket is adored,’’ he acknowledges. ‘‘I may not have become a cricketer professionally, but I’m still a sportsman at heart. It teaches you the fundamentals: tackling pressure head-on, people management, rallying as a team, processing emotions, discipline and dedication. So that attitude helped me transition to the top brass at Rush. I’m really grateful for this job and I’m precisely where I want to be. I’m lucky to be living in an era where there’s a plethora of opportunities for jaded cricketers who eventually gave up,’’ Rithin notes.
According to him, ‘’going back a decade or two, it was difficult as either you get a bank job or move into something else completely’’. Umesh Yadav and KL Rahul have been conferred honorary positions by Reserve Bank of India, while Mohammad Siraj was appointed as a Deputy Superintendent of Police. These bestowments are confined to prominent names, but for every success story in India there are thousands of passionate cricketers who vanish into the oblivion. The expansion of the industry is hence a godsend for the also-rans, limiting the brain drain that occurs when subject matter experts jump ship in the absence of aligned gigs. Take, for instance, commentary.
The mic has, for time immemorial, attracted retired pros. Fabian Cowdrey didn’t belong to their ilk, having hung his boots at the tender age of 24. Grandson of Sir Colin Cowdrey, a Kent veteran, and son of Chris Cowdrey, another former England captain, he was a gifted batter whose modification into a left-arm spinner was a direct consequence of T20 rigours. Fabian scored 7 half-centuries and took 34 wickets in 60 white-ball ties. In the longer format he couldn’t nail down a berth, alas, concluding with two half-centuries in 16 Championship games.
“I didn’t feel the investment, the sacrifice or the hours I was putting in were equating to anything,” Fabian rued. “That frustrated me because the statistics didn’t reflect the player I was or could have been. It was eating me up inside. I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning.’’
‘’Since I was six-year-old I wanted to follow dad and grandad into the England dressing room so it was difficult to let that go. But ultimately I put my happiness before anything else.’’
His mother’s networking prowess facilitated the switch to the studio. Andy Peebles and Adam Mountford of Test Match Special fame were happy to experiment with a fresh voice, and 72 elite matches on his resume cast little doubt over Fabian’s ability to help subscribers appreciate the color and nuance of the funny old sport that is cricket. “I think the listeners must have enjoyed the insight into the dressing room, the gossip and the discussion around strategies and approaches,’’ he believed, with good reason too. In the last seven years, Fabian has called the action for both BBC and talkSport as well as local radio.
Not content with anchoring duties, and in the mould of a true all-rounder, Fabian added a string to his bow when launching Cow Corner events in 2018. “I started that about six to twelve months after I finished playing cricket to make an exclusive and memorable experience for individuals who wanted to get up close and personal to their sporting heroes,’’ he outlined. Sir Garfield Sobers, Marcus Trescothick, David Gower, Graham Gooch, Ian Bell, Shaun Pollock, Simon Jones and Graeme Fowler have all graced the hot seat to conjure up evenings of healthy discussions, sound advice and unmitigated laughter with dad Chris serving as the emcee.
‘’We’ve ran our live events in London and are now tapping into the virtual world, launching an online community and membership portal to give people the chance to learn from the very best who have played,’’ Fabian notified.
Alongside client entertainment, CowCorner focuses on delivering tailored workshops to enable peak performance and transfer athletic nous into the workplace. Rather active on LinkedIn, Fabian recently quoted British entrepreneur Steven Bartlett: ‘Knowing when to step away is just as important as having the resilience to carry on. If something costs me my sense of joy and happiness, is it truly worth it? We only get one life. And for me, the greater risk is staying in something I’m unsure of while ignoring my intuition.’
The baggage of an unrealised vision was heavy to deal with for Ananya, Rithin and Fabian each, but in retrospect, their devotion didn’t go down the drain thanks to the myriad branches of the tree they once clung onto for dear life.
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Aag laga dii bhai.