Author: Ashok Namboodiri

What began as a set of preseason games has now evolved into something far more structural. With the NBA and the Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi announcing a long-term renewal of their partnership, the emirate has made a clear statement: this is not about event tourism. Abu Dhabi is no longer positioning itself as a stop on the global basketball calendar. It is positioning itself as the basketball capital of the Middle East. The renewed agreement ensures that the NBA Global Games will continue to be staged in Abu Dhabi, extending the success of sold-out fixtures that…

So Scotland, an Associate Member, is all set to play the ICC T20 World Cup next month. While such a move is not unprecedented, the standoff between the ICC and the Bangladesh Cricket Board was never really about venues, visas or security. Those are surface symptoms. What we are witnessing is something deeper and far more consequential: a global sport trying to run the new geo political realities on the basis of old templates of governance. What if we were to look at this from a modern day financial lens and think about structural reform that could be a win…

The standoff between the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) over participation in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is no longer about venues, security, or even bilateral discomfort. It has become a test case for what global cricket now chooses to be – a rules-based, commercially stable ecosystem, or a politically negotiable one. What began as a request to shift Bangladesh’s fixtures away from India on “security grounds” has now escalated into an ideological battle framed as resistance to power. The ICC’s response .. an unprecedented 14–2 board vote authorising Bangladesh’s removal for non-compliance is…

Ashok Namboodiri The standoff between the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) over participation in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup has triggered a governance crisis that goes far beyond a single tournament. The ICC’s refusal to alter venues, its rejection of a proposed fixture swap, and the unprecedented 14 – 2 board vote, authorising removal for non-compliance, represent a decisive shift in how global cricket is governed. At a policy level, this marks the emergence of two schools of philosophy – one that is about governance where institutional rules and commercial stability override political…

In sports like tennis and badminton, athlete is the enterprise. The player hires, fires, and defines the coach’s role. Coaching authority exists by consent, not hierarchy. This autonomy breeds individuality: playing styles, routines and risk appetite. In contrast, in team sports, authority historically flows top-down and the coach sets philosophy, systems and selection. The captain executes on field but within a defined framework. The T20 format of cricket introduces a third variable — real time data and analytics. Here technology focusses on match-ups, win probabilities, pitch behaviour, fatigue metrics and historical performance records. Ironically, the format that looks the most…

India went down 2-1 for the first time in an ODI series against New Zealand at home. I am glad I didn’t see too many comments (at least not yet) saying that Harshit Rana’s 50-plus knock and three wickets was a bright spot and if Virat Kohli had stayed on for two more overs, we could have swung this one. Those were bright spots for sure and I am not going to come back to that in this artcile. I think the wolf is clearly at the door and its time to get down to the basics. Our ability to…

Sport has always been measured, but never quite like this. For most of sporting history, performance was interpreted through the naked eye and trained instinct. Coaches trusted experience and players trusted feel. The body spoke in fatigue and rhythm. Today, the body speaks in numbers. Wearables have quietly become the most powerful, and least visible disruptor in modern sport. They haven’t changed the rules of the game, but they have fundamentally altered how sport is trained, played and understood. The earliest tools of performance measurement were blunt instruments: lap times, stopwatches, heart-rate checks taken before and after sessions. Wearables moved…

In the same week that bird droppings halted play at the India Open badminton tournament, Royal Challengers Bengaluru proposed an AI-driven video analytics system to manage crowds at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. One incident was mildly absurd, the other quietly radical. Together, they tell us something deeply uncomfortable about Indian sport: our ambition has sprinted ahead of our infrastructure. India today produces world-class athletes, global broadcast numbers and packed stadiums. What it does not consistently produce is predictability. And at scale, unpredictability is not charming. It is dangerous. For decades, crowd management in Indian sport has been treated as a law-and-order…

When I asked Sunil Joshi, the bowling coach of the U-19 India team playing the ICC World Cup in Zimbabwe currently, he reeled off what sounded like a cryptic clue “1. Hand: when the hand works its only labour. 2. Head: when hand and head work it becomes skill. 3. Heart: when hand, head and heart all three work together it becomes art. Make every act of your life an art, put your heart full into it. When your signature changes to autograph, this marks the success.” As I sat down and thought about it, I realised Joshi is saying…

Bison Kaalamaadan is not designed to entertain in the conventional sense. It confronts, unsettles, and occasionally exhausts the viewer — much like the sport it places at its core. Mari Selvaraj’s film, now streaming on Netflix, is a reminder that the most powerful sports stories are rarely glossy or comfortable. Anchored by an extraordinarily restrained performance from Dhruv Vikram — who smiles just once in the entire film — Bison Kaalamaadan emerges as one of the most honest sports films Indian cinema has produced, and perhaps the most authentic representation of kabaddi ever put on screen. At one level, this…