Author: Ashok Namboodiri

Modern cricket stadiums are increasingly being judged not only by the quality of their pitches or the size of their crowds, but by something far less visible and far more consequential: how intelligently they manage water. In an era of climate volatility and urban water stress, stadium sustainability has shifted from a feel-good add-on to a core measure of governance. Globally, the direction of travel is clear. The best-run venues no longer ask how much water cricket consumes, but what kind of water is being used, and how much of it is recycled, harvested, or substituted away from potable supply.…

Few Indian athletes embody longevity, resilience, and global relevance quite like P.V. Sindhu. For over more than a decade at the elite level, Sindhu has experienced every phase of an elite sporting career: meteoric rise, sustained dominance, global validation, physical setbacks, and now, a carefully calibrated pause. Her journey offers a compelling lens through which to examine not only her own achievements, but also how extraordinarily difficult it is for women athletes to make comebacks at the highest international level. P. V. Sindhu’s career milestones read like a blueprint of Indian badminton’s rise on the global stage. From announcing herself…

At its core, a brand is not a logo, a social-media following, or a sponsorship portfolio. A brand is a set of associations stored in the public mind – a blend of performance, perception, narrative, trust, and emotional connection. For athletes, the brand lives at the intersection of what they do, what they represent, and what people believe they might become. An athlete brand is therefore both earned (through performance) and constructed (through storytelling, context, and continuity). It is also uniquely fragile, because sport is a zero-sum ecosystem: there are limited spots, finite opportunities, and relentless public scrutiny. To understand…

The most dangerous thing that can happen to a young cricketer today is not failure; it is premature success. Money, instant fame, social media adulation, and the unrelenting spotlight of leagues like the IPL can arrive before the emotional equipment needed to handle them. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s misplaced aggression in the U-19 Asia Cup final against Pakistan was not merely an individual lapse; it was a symptom of a system that accelerates stardom but delays maturity . Talent has never been the issue. Vaibhav is, by any measure, a generational prospect. But modern cricket increasingly tests something far more fragile than…

Stories of uncapped players like Prashant Veer landing a ₹14.2 crore jackpot and Kartik Sharma emerging as a multi-crore “six-hitting machine” overnight are why the IPL auction has evolved into something far bigger than a sporting transaction. It is India’s most gripping reality television, except the stakes here are real, irreversible, and life-altering. Every great reality show rests on a few timeless elements: an underdog, a moment of truth, public validation, fierce competition, emotional investment, and transformation. The IPL mini-auction has all of that — compressed into a few breathless hours. Take Veer’s story. A 20-year-old left-arm spinner from a…

With limited slots and most cores already locked in, each franchise walks in with a very clear philosophical brief – one word that captures how it intends to behave, bid, and build. Chennai Super Kings – Continuity CSK approach auctions the way they play cricket: calm, role-driven, and allergic to panic. With a purse of 43.40 cr and 9 slots with 4 overseas slots, CSK will go after role clarity. With Sanju Samson traded in and a strong Indian bowling base retained, their shopping list screams: a reliable overseas top-order bat, a death-overs specialist, and one seam-bowling all-rounder to keep…

Most start-ups don’t fail because they lack funding, talent, or ambition. They fail because they lose their centre. Somewhere between the pitch deck and the pursuit of scale, the original reason for existence gets diluted. At RevSportz, the starting point was never a business plan. It was a question: Can Indian sport be covered with honesty, depth, and dignity beyond cricket? Four years later, that question still defines us. In the time that I have been associated with RevSportz, I have seen these six principles at work, and I daresay they would hold up for any start-up. RevSportz did not…

The Salt Lake Stadium segment of Messi’s “GOAT Tour” in Kolkata descended into chaos when thousands of fans, many of whom paid significant ticket prices, were unable to see even a brief appearance by the football icon. This frustration quickly escalated into violent protests: chairs and bottles were thrown, barricades were breached, and fans invaded the pitch. Police had to intervene, and the organisers were detained amid public and political fallout. I have been researching recurring incidents of poor crowd management at sports, movie, and political rallies over the last few months in India – Chinnaswamy, Karur, New Delhi Railway…

From a broadcaster’s standpoint, cricket formats are not cultural artefacts; they are monetisation engines. Tests, ODIs and T20s each deliver revenue very differently, shaped by pricing power, inventory volume, advertiser demand and, increasingly, risk. And while One Day Internationals currently remain the most lucrative format on television, early signs suggest that advantage is beginning to erode. Test cricket remains the most emotionally valuable, yet a commercially fragile format. A single Test offers enormous inventory – close to 600 live ad spots, but limited pricing power, with average spot rates hovering around ₹1 lakh. Live match revenue therefore sits near ₹18…

Some cricketers give you numbers. A few give you narratives. Only a rare handful give you mythology. Yuvraj Singh lived in that final category… a cricketer who didn’t merely play the game but bent it into cinematic frames, each one bigger, brighter, louder than the last. On his birthday, it’s worth remembering that Yuvi was never just an India star; he was an event. A phenomenon. A character who walked straight out of a screenplay and onto a cricket field where logic often surrendered to his aura. For all the elegance of Indian left-handers through history, none merged grace…