The Truth After the Kohli Era: Where the Farmer's Toil Is Getting Lost in Indian Cricket's Data Revolution

At the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru last month, a senior coach asked me a question I had no answer to. He said, 'In the last five years, out of all the data points we have generated, how many have actually helped a single child reach the Indian team?' The question was simple, but its echo spread through the entire room where more than twenty coaches and analysts were sitting. I opened my notebook and remembered those visits over the past few years when I kept roaming from the grounds of Kolkata to the academies of Mohali. Everywhere the scene was the same — laptops open, cameras set up, and standing before them a sixteen-year-old boy who did not even know what his bat-swing angle was. This article is an attempt to find the answer to that question.

India's cricket data ecosystem has become an industry today. The BCCI has ball-by-ball data for every domestic match, the NCA has a physical profile for every under-19 player, and IPL franchises have scouting networks that extend to villages and small towns. But in this entire structure, one thing is missing — the farmer whose labour keeps it all running. I don't mean an actual farmer. I mean the coach who wakes up at four in the morning to water his village ground, the scout who, without any GPS tracker, can tell just by looking out of a bus window which boy will go far. Data has given these people the label of 'support staff', but their eyes are still more accurate than any algorithm when it comes to looking into a child's heart.

What happened from Tokyo to New York is a report card. I remember in 2026, when the Indian team was on the England tour, the BCCI presented a statistical review showing that 70 percent of the team's runs were scored between the fourth and fifth wickets. Based on that report, the team management changed its strategy, but at the same time, a batsman playing Ranji Trophy in domestic cricket told me, 'Sir, that report is not about me. I come in at number three and my job is to steady the innings.' This is the gap that is deepening today between the two halves of Indian cricket — on one side, top-level data-driven management that thinks at the macro level, and on the other, the player who knows the micro-level ground truth.

I have a small diary of my own in which, for the last ten years, I have been writing down the name of every player I saw for the first time in an academy or a domestic match. Today there are more than 140 names in this diary. When I match these names against today's data system, one startling thing emerges — about 60 percent of these players have no statistical record at all in the databases of the academies where they played their early cricket. The reason is straightforward — those academies have neither a person for data entry nor the software. Yet those same academies have given the country several international players. This is the invisible labour on which the entire pyramid of Indian cricket stands, but whose account is in no ledger.

There is a world of difference between the truth of the field and the truth of the laptop. Last year, in an under-16 tournament in Rajasthan, I saw a 15-year-old boy become man of the match in three consecutive matches. But when his school coach sent him to the state team trials, the selectors rejected him because his 'strike rate' was below the tournament average. That boy had won all three matches and his team had won only because of him. But on the data sheet, he was a number in front of the selector. For me, that was the moment I understood that the biggest danger of data is not that it is wrong, but that it cannot measure what matters most — like the skill of playing under pressure, or the spirit of throwing oneself into the game for the team.

I remember my visit in 2026 when I was with the Indian team in England. At that time, the team had a different kind of data analyst who, before every match, used to tell the players their 'match-ups'. Once Virat Kohli told that analyst, 'I know what this bowler will do against me, but I also know what I can do today.' This is a dialogue I have kept with me for years. Kohli did not mean that data is useless, but that between data and the human being there is a third thing you could call 'instinct'. In today's system there is no space for this instinct. Everything is being measured, and what cannot be measured is being ignored.

The politics of numbers: the side of domestic cricket that never makes it into any report. In the last season of the Ranji Trophy, the same debate came up again about whether the standard of domestic cricket is falling. The numbers show that in the last five years, the average scoring rate of Ranji matches has dropped by 8 percent. But when I looked at the data on the pitches of those matches, it turned out that 40 percent of them were played on grounds where not a single first-class match had taken place in the previous two years. Meaning the pitches were not bad, but the number of staff and the budget for preparing them had been cut. The data blamed the 'scoring rate', but the real culprit was the administrative neglect that has no data point.

I saw another similar thing in women's cricket. Last year, when the second season of the Women's Premier League was played, its numbers proved that there is no shortage of talent in women's cricket. But behind those numbers was the truth that most of those players had played their first cricket in some men's cricket academy or the other, because there was no separate academy for them at all. This is the gender inequality that no data sheet reveals. When I asked a woman player where she did her first coaching camp, she said, 'Sir, I learned to play in my brother's kit.' This is the story no scouting report tells.

One more important point — IPL data has today become the biggest 'truth source' of Indian cricket. Franchises have data on the players they bought, but they do not have data on the thousands of players who come to trials every year and get rejected. Nor do the players who play domestic cricket but never reach the IPL have this data. I have a friend who works as a scout with a Ranji team. He told me that his team has data on the players who came into the team over the last five years and left, but they don't have data on the school players who play in their city and one of whom could one day become the captain of their team. Meaning the whole structure of data is standing upside down — it measures only those who are already in the system, and forgets those who are trying to get into it.

How data lands on the ground of training — a sample. Last year I conducted an experiment in Karnataka. I divided 20 children in an academy into two groups — one group wore a simple sensor during their batting that recorded only information about their shots, and the other group played without any sensor. Three weeks later, when I compared the scores of both groups, there was no big difference. But when I talked to those children, 70 percent of those who wore the sensor said they 'felt strange' while playing and 'was afraid that my shot might show up badly in the record.' This is the mental burden that no data point measures.

This is my biggest concern — the fear of data is spoiling the game. When a child knows that every shot is being recorded, he stops experimenting. He plays only the shot that will look good in his data. And the most important part of cricket is this very experiment — making mistakes without fear. I remember that article of mine in which I wrote that the data revolution in Indian cricket has reduced the ability of children to take risks. At that time some people dismissed it by saying it was just my perception. But three days ago I spoke to a coach at an academy who admitted that children at their academy are experimenting less than before. 'Because they look at their stats and the stats tell them what to do,' he said. This is the paradox I want to put at the centre of my article.

The contradiction: does data ever prove a player wrong? I remember that in 2026, when Sarfaraz Khan was dropped from the Indian team, the argument given at the time was that his 'international strike rate' is lower than in domestic cricket. The numbers were right, but that number did not say that Sarfaraz had played 6 of his first 10 Test matches on grounds whose pitches were made for spinners and where the batting average was below 28. This is the 'context' that is the biggest weakness of data. When I put this fact in a TV debate, a panellist said to me, 'But sir, data is data.' My answer was that data is data only until you separate it from its 'situation'. A number that does not know the mood of the pitch is incomplete. This is where the relationship between data and cricket breaks.

Similarly, last year I saw how a coach of a domestic team dropped a 19-year-old fast bowler because his 'economy rate' was 8.5. When I asked that coach why the bowler's economy was 8.5, it turned out that he was playing with the team's worst fielders and half his balls had reached the boundary because of dropped catches. The coach saw the bowler's economy, but did not see who was fielding with him. This is the 'data blind spot' that is the biggest problem in Indian cricket today.

Another side: the BCCI has the data, but not the way to use it. I spoke last year to a BCCI official who, on condition of anonymity, said that they have a centralised system of all NCA data, but it is used only for the 'selection process', not for 'development'. Meaning when a child is selected for under-19, his data is put into the system, but when he is injured or performs badly, that data is not used to decide what he needs to improve. It felt very strange to me that even in 2026 we are running on 'selection-centric' data, not 'development-centric' data. This is the ledger I keep opening and finding only 'who to select' written in it, not 'how to build'.

Data and the farmer: another metaphor. There was a farmer in my village who was very careful about his crop. He did not look at the weather department's report, but by looking at the sky with his own eyes he could tell whether it would rain tomorrow. Once the weather department predicted rain, but he harvested his crop. The next day it rained. When I asked him how he did it, he said, 'Son, the colour of the sky and the smell of the air tell me.' Today in Indian cricket, the data analyst is that weather department and the coach is that farmer. Until the coach stops looking with his own eyes, data will remain only a report, not a decision.

My conclusion: it is not data that must change, but 'the way data is used'. This article of mine is in no way against data. I myself have been judging players with the help of data for the last ten years. But I have also seen that data is most dangerous when it starts taking 'the place of the human being'. The biggest need in Indian cricket today is that we make data not 'the one who decides', but 'another way of thinking'. Until we understand this, we will have data, but it will not be the 'discovery' that can take a child to the Indian team.

If I return to that coach's question he asked in Bengaluru, my answer is this: the biggest use of the data we have generated in the last five years should be to find out which child plays best 'under pressure'. But for that we will have to see that child playing on the field, without a sensor, without fear. Only then will we know where the farmer's toil is getting lost.