Netravalkar, US' business model & collapsing infra
Best Cricket Stories of the Week, 8th to 14th June 2024
“Cricket was over for me. I had no hope or expectation left to play again”; BBC’s Janhavee Moole has the best profile of the Saurabh Netravalkar, the ex-India prodigy who’s taken the World Cup by storm as a valued member of the overachieving USA team.
“As per (US) Census data, Indians have a higher per capita income of any demographic — higher than Jewish and Japanese people, which has historically not been the case. You have a very elite audience that way”; The Playbook’s Venkat Ananth breaks down the business case for American cricket, and talks about how franchise cricket plans to take over once the World Cup gets done.
“What I learnt was that there are two completely different kinds of cricket over there,” he explains. “During the daytime it turns big, real big when it is hot and muggy. At nighttime, it gets so wet with the dew and the wickets become very skiddy”; The Boundary Rider’s Andrew Young has a great chat with CPL-veteran Fawad Ahmad to get a sense of what pitches await the World Cup in the Carribean.
“At the time, I didn’t fully understand the significance because I was focused on fulfilling my ambition to play international cricket. Later in life, you get wiser and understand the political implications and historical significance of what happened”; Sportstar’s Ayan Acharya has a fantastic interview with Roland Butcher, England’s first every black cricketer, about his life and career.
“I spent a lot of time growing up at his house, where armed with our first bats and sponge, tennis, or ’crazy’ balls, we proceeded to make every room of that house a cricket pitch for ourselves”; Vishal Shah has a fantastic personal piece on falling in love with cricket, packed with anecdotes that everyone can relate to. It’s honestly such a pure memory-spawning piece that I couldn’t leave it out!
PCCI has a fantastic conversation with Sharda Ugra & Gideon Haigh about the state of cricket off the pitch; among administrators, within the media, and amongst other interested parties that want to co-opt the sport. [Apple Podcasts]
Club Prairie Fire have their first big interview of the World Cup with breakout American star Aaron Jones.
The always great 6ixandout have another mini-documentary on the perhaps the last great West Indies side; the surprisingly well-rounded team that romped to the 2016 T20 World Cup despite pre-tournament drama and controversies.
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