The Country in the Second Row: The Scorecard Indian Cricket Never Prints

It was the third day of the third innings at Kotla. At half past two in the afternoon I started counting — a habit thirteen years old. When you cannot work out what a match is about, count. That day the count came out like this: fourteen chairs in the press box, four occupied. Eleven groundstaff, three of whom were only hauling water drums. An old man selling jaggery outside Gate 4, who told me he had sat there since 2026. And in the stands — I counted twice, because the first time I did not trust my own arithmetic — one hundred and thirty-seven people.

That day I filed nine hundred words. On the groundstaff, on the jaggery seller, on the sound of a bat handle that echoes through an empty stadium like a scream. My editor cut it to three hundred and twenty and said the score was the story. He was half right. He was half wrong because he never asked why the stands were empty that day. And that question, nine years later, matters more than ever. The press box has a pulse, and I learned to type to it — but listening to a pulse and examining a patient are two different things.

Context: The calendar is itself a document

The Indian cricket year now splits into three economic bodies, and their media footprints are not equal. January to March is the domestic season — Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare, Syed Mushtaq Ali. March to May is the IPL, now the calendar's largest revenue centre, whose auction coverage has itself become an industry. Then the international window. And above all this, since 2026, the Women's Premier League — carving out its own space, but still walking in the shadow of the men's IPL template, even though its cricket has never been of lower quality.

In November 2026 India won the Women's World Cup on home soil — at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, beating South Africa. The noise in that stadium that night was genuinely architecture — nobody designed it, but it stood up. And barely three months later, when the domestic season began, in the same country playing the same sport, one newspaper sent a stringer to cover a Ranji match who did not even know the score properly. That contradiction is not a coincidence. It is a system.

I have been writing this system for sixteen years, and every year it gives me the same thing: not a shortage of talent, but a problem of the chooser. The claim of this piece is that Indian cricket's biggest story is not who won — the biggest story is who got the coverage, who got the contract, and who got a single paragraph. I report from places — from the edge of the roar, where the story learns to breathe.

Core: The machine and the invoice

What the IPL gave Indian cricket is a machine — a scouting network, fitness science, ball-tracking data, and above all a platform where a twenty-year-old can become a crorepati in two months. That is true and should not be diminished. But every machine has an invoice, and in Indian cricket that invoice arrives in the name of the Ranji Trophy.

Here I will not write the easy line that the IPL killed Test cricket. That sentence is lazy, and wrong. What happened is subtler. Franchise scouting changed the logic of zonal selection. Once a player played for his zone, for his state, and his path to the national team ran through Ranji performance. Now that same player first goes to a franchise trial camp, is handed a specialist role — death-overs bowler, or a left-handed batter only for the powerplay — and that role becomes his identity. In Ranji he must become a whole cricketer again, but he has no time for it, because the next auction is only eight months away.

The result is that domestic cricket is no longer a place of development but a place of verification. Ranji is no longer the laboratory where players are made; it is the document on which a franchise verifies whether what it bought at auction is real. This is a fundamental shift, and its effect is not on the quality of the game but on its meaning.

Auction coverage is the clearest document of this shift. Look at what gets made into news. Whether a franchise retained a player — that stays a headline for three days. The purse ran dry, no bid came, a player went unsold — that becomes an emotional story. But if, in the same week, a state association extended its Ranji coach's contract by three months, it appears nowhere. Retention maths tells us how much money a franchise has left. It never tells us how many days of net practice on his state's pitch the player produced by that money will get.

I once asked a franchise trainer what he advises his young Indian players in the off-season. He said — rest, avoid injury, be ready for the next auction. I asked, Ranji? He laughed and said, that is their own affair. That sentence — that is their own affair — explains the entire labour system of Indian cricket. The franchise makes the player, but dumps the duty of caring for him on the state association. The state association has no money, so it stands a twenty-year-old on the same old pitch where someone else stood in 2026.

One more thing must be added here, because it is under-discussed. The problem with Ranji coverage is not only that newspapers do not send anyone. The problem is that the coverage that does happen is in the language of the scorecard. 'Took three wickets', 'hit a fifty' — these sentences are not about the game, they are about the game's numbers. Nobody writes what the pitch was like that day, which way the wind blew, why a bowler changed his line. Because to write that someone would have to sit there for four days, and nobody has the budget to sit anyone there for four days. I write for the ones outside the gate, listening for the roar — and I think they have a right to know what was actually happening inside, more than the scorecard tells them.

Core: The country in the second row

Now the part where I make my most reliable counter-intuitive move. It is said India lacks talent, especially in fast bowling, especially in left-handed batting, especially in wicketkeeper-batters. My claim is the opposite. India has so much depth that its second XI would beat the first XI of several full member nations. The problem is not talent. The problem is the chooser.

To see this you have to read the central contracts list as a document. Every year the BCCI sorts players into grades A+, A, B, C. This list is not a measure of anyone's talent — it is a statement of institutional priority. Look at where players of which format are placed. A player who plays only T20 often has a different path. A player who plays with the red ball is weighed on a different scale. And a woman player's contract arrives alongside the men's list, but her number and her value are still kept in a separate table. That table is not proof of anyone's intent, but it is a structure, and structures speak.

The best example of the depth problem is the Impact Player rule. When it was introduced, the argument was that it would make strategy more interesting. In fact it taught teams that they can hide their weakness. Once a team had to balance its eleven — an all-rounder who could fill in as neither a sixth bowler nor a seventh batter. Now that need for balance is gone. A team plays a specialist batter, and when the bowling innings comes, a specialist bowler takes his place on the field. This is clever. But this cleverness comes at the cost of the player who is genuinely an all-rounder — the player who can do both jobs, but whom no team now needs, because his dual ability is useless in a world where you can use two different people in the same match.

I have counted over the last few seasons how many young all-rounders, who in domestic cricket regularly bowled five overs and batted at number six, appeared in the IPL in only one role. That number is rising. And that same number will decide the balance of India's Test team over the next five years. Because in Test cricket there is no Impact Player. In Tests you need that same all-rounder whom the IPL taught you to discard. And when he is not there, we will say there is a shortage of talent.

Now the most overlooked part: wicketkeeping. India currently has three wicketkeeper-batters who could play in any Test team, and at least one of them must sit out every match. No other country has this luxury. But this luxury has a price — the one who sits out loses his rhythm, and the next time he gets a chance he must prove he is still the same player. It is a race in which everyone is running, but there is only one place on the track.

The same applies to fast bowlers. India currently has so many fast bowlers that on a good pitch in the domestic season the fast-bowling quota fills up, and some talented boy must wait three years — only because someone else stands ahead of him. This is not a shortage of talent. It is a crowd, and in a crowd the chooser must decide whom to keep and whom to let go. And when you let someone go, he starts playing for another team, and bowls against you in the next World Cup.

I want to clear up one misconception here. It is said that India's bench strength is its strength. I say it is its biggest test. Strength is when you can use it. When you have ten good players and can only field four, the other six become a threat to you — because they will go and play somewhere else, and come back and beat you. This is a problem only the country that has too much suffers. And its solution is not in finding talent, but in building a system that can retain it — contracts, rotation, and above all, honest communication.

Core: The coverage map

Now to the part I consider my real ailment. I read every tournament as a document of absence. I learned this method in my IPL days and completed it in my women's World Cup work. The method is simple: count who got a byline, who got a broadcast slot, who was called to the press conference. And then let the arithmetic speak.

One example. During any international series, there are usually twenty to thirty journalists in the media centre. The number of women journalists among them is often between two and four. I have watched this number hold steady for years, and it is astonishingly stable. Now, during that same series, if a women's cricket match were being played in the same city, how many journalists come for it separately? Often that number sits near zero. These are two separate counts, and the gap between them is the story.

Another example, the one that stings most. After a match, usually the captain and coach come to the press conference. Questions are asked in English, and answers come in English. But that same match is being watched that evening by crores of people on regional-language channels — Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Hindi. The journalists from those channels are often simply not present at that conference, because their credential does not get made. And even if they are present, they rarely get a chance to ask. This means the questions of the largest audience are never asked. This is not a failure of coverage. This is the definition of coverage.

Now women's cricket. The November 2026 title was a historic moment for Indian women's cricket, and I will not diminish it. But I will audit that moment the same way I audit men's cricket — because if I do not audit it, I am not taking it seriously. The question is: after that win, did the domestic structure change for women players? Is there a strong, long, prestigious domestic tournament for them like the Ranji, with four-day matches? Is the broadcast of their matches done with the same quality of cameras? Do their coaches get the same salaries? These questions demand answers in numbers, and when I look at the numbers, the answer is still incomplete.

The Women's Premier League is the best example. It is a real achievement — it gave players money, recognition, and a stage to show their ability. But its economy is several times smaller than the men's IPL. This does not mean it should be shut down. It means that when we praise women's cricket, we must also say what its wages are, how many homes its broadcast reaches, and what standard of facilities its players get. Praise is true only when it comes with scrutiny.

I will say something that will sound harsh to some. On women's cricket we have only two kinds of articles. One — 'this is historic, this is inspiring'. Two — 'there is still discrimination'. Both are true, and both are incomplete. The third article is the one I want to write: the one with selection errors, an accounting of broadcast promises, the numbers of the WPL auction, and the names of administrators who made some promises and kept none. Writing women's cricket with the same rigour with which we write men's cricket — that is respect, not charity.

There is one more absence in this whole map that I often think about — the bilateral series that no longer happens. India versus Pakistan now occurs only in ICC tournaments, and every time it does, it is written as a historic romance. I do not consider it romance. I consider it a scheduling and revenue fact. Matches that no longer happen have no scorecard either, and what has no scorecard also fades from memory. Journalism's job is to name this absence, not to perfume it.

Core: The third umpire and the slogan of transparency

Now an issue on which my position is clear and which I also see from outside the sport. In football there is a debate about VAR — referees do not explain their decisions to the spectators present in the stadium. I have watched this for years, and the same applies to cricket's third umpire.

Decisions have become more accurate since DRS arrived — that must be admitted. But what do the forty thousand people sitting in the stadium get? An animation on the big screen, some lines, and then one word — out or not out. What 'umpire's call' means is never properly explained to anyone. The viewer watching at home on TV gets slow-motion replays, gets the commentator's analysis. The viewer in the stadium gets only a decision, without reason. This is a strange asymmetry. The person who pays the most for a ticket gets the least information.

I do not consider this a technical problem. I consider it a problem of attitude. Transparency remains a slogan only as long as implementing it is inconvenient. If cricket's administrators genuinely wanted, the stadium screen could show where the ball pitched, how far it was from the stumps, and under which rule the decision came. This is not technically difficult. It is only a question of will. And that will will not arrive until spectators demand it.

The same applies off the field. When a selection committee drops a player, the reason is never made public. When someone is removed from a central contract, no explanation comes. When a match's timing is changed, there is no communication. All of this comes from the same attitude — that the spectator is a spectator who must be given only the result, not the reason. And this attitude, in my experience, also drags down the quality of coverage, because when there are no reasons, the journalist too starts writing only results.

Core: The stat that lies

In football, the most deceptive stat in my view is possession percentage. A team can keep the ball sixty percent of the time and create nothing — only sideways passes, only backward passes, and in the end a defeat. In cricket there is a directly equivalent one, and it is — average.

A batter's average can be forty-five and he can be a burden to his team in T20. How? If he reaches that average playing at a strike rate of one hundred and twenty. Average tells you how often he got out, not how many balls he spent. And in T20, balls are the real currency. A fifty that came off forty-five balls can lose a team the match, even if it looks golden on the scorecard. The same applies to bowlers. A bowler's economy can be seven point five, but if he bowled all those overs in the powerplay, he is excellent; and if he bowled all those overs in the middle overs, he is ordinary. The number is the same, the meaning is inverted.

I raise this because a large part of our coverage stands on these incomplete numbers. We take 'a fifty' as an event, when it is only a number. We take 'three wickets' as a performance, when it is only a count. The real story is in the ball on which the fifty was completed — was it a bad ball, was a fielder in the wrong place, did the captain choose the wrong bowler. To write that you have to watch the match, not the number.

Another stat that troubles me — net run rate. In a league table it is a column, but spectators take it as fate's decision. The truth is that NRR rewards the team that beat the weaker teams by big margins. It is not a measure of strength; it is a measure of the schedule. The team that got two weak teams in the first round will have a better NRR, even if it was weak against the big teams. When a team is knocked out on NRR, we say — bad luck. In fact it was the schedule, not luck.

I want to apply the same thinking to retention and auction numbers. When a franchise releases a player, we judge by his last season's numbers. But the real reason is often purse arithmetic, not performance. A player is released because the ratio of his price to his role does not fit the team's budget. This is an economic decision, not a cricket decision. And when we write it as a cricket decision, we tell the spectator the wrong story.

Contrarian: The story of strength, the fault of the chooser

Now the turn for which I must often brace myself, because my readers now expect it. I will not write it without evidence.

The prevailing story is that Indian cricket is the richest, deepest and most successful system in the world, and its success is credited to its talent pipeline. I accept the first part of this story and not the second. The pipeline is genuinely magnificent — so magnificent that it has become a problem for its own country's teams. If you have fifty players who are international standard, and you can field only fifteen, where do the other thirty-five go? They go to foreign leagues. They consider playing for other countries. They get injured and vanish into anonymity. This is not a triumph of talent; it is a failure of selection.

So my counter-claim is this: India's biggest weakness is not a shortage of talent, but its inability to manage its talent. And this inability belongs not to one person but to a structure — a structure that runs on auction money, but whose mind is not on domestic cricket. Until domestic cricket is taken as seriously as the auction is taken, this failure will persist.

Test this against a concrete benchmark. If Indian cricket's depth is genuinely so great, then its domestic competitions' coverage should be in the same proportion. Is it? No. If the women's World Cup win genuinely brought change, then the number of women's domestic cricket matches should have increased after it. Did it? Somewhat. And if selection is genuinely transparent, then every big decision's reason should be public. Is it? No. These three questions are always ready with me, and their answers are often less thrilling than the claim I wanted to write. When the evidence is thinner than the surprise, I cut the surprise.

Takeaway

If you ask me what Indian cricket's biggest story will be over the next five years, I will not name a trophy. I will wait for the day when, in the fourth innings of a Ranji match, in an empty stadium, the sound from the bat of some twenty-year-old gets as much space as an auction bid gets. When that day comes, we will know Indian cricket has begun to print its real scorecard. Until then, I will keep writing that scorecard by hand — numbers on the left, and on the right, the sounds nobody hears. The final whistle is punctuation; the silence afterward is the sentence. And I will keep reporting from that silence.