MAGAZINE Voices Anand Neelakantan Anuja Chandramouli Utkarsh Amitabh Ravi Shankar Deepali Bhardwaj Swami Sukhabodhananda Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI february 8 2026 SUNDAY PAGES 12 E xc lu s i v e The Other Cricket As ICC Men’s T20 World Cup kicks off, a parallel multimillion rupee local cricket boom is creating icons, giving unknown players and officials a living while tech-based rankings decide auction fees for local cricketers By Suhail Bhat O ne thousand fifty crore, give or take a few by today’s calculations is a lot of money It bowls you over. It is what the world’s second-most followed . sport T20 cricket makes and complete with auction drama, data dashboards, pyrotechnics, and broadcast muscle. But away from it all has risen a parallel money machine, a unique T20 played as local cricket. Tahir Ibn Manzoor, a cricket analyst who tracks grassroots tournaments, calls it “India’s quietest cricket revolution.” Local cricket has become a business model almost parallel to the IPL, but of course on a smaller scale. “The IPL made the blueprint. Local cricket brought it to the gullies. Everything is recorded, every run logged. Every Player has a profile. Technology has professionalised everything,” he says. “That’s the power of this new ecosystem.” Manzoor tells us about teenagers and office-goers bought at local auctions for Rs `20,000–`50,000 a season—perhaps enough to pay the rent, or provide a secondary income for others, and above all, give an identity of their own to many a small town Virat Kohli who is an electrician or computer operator. On weekends, Delhi NCR feels like it’s running its own mini-league circuit. Grounds are booked months out. Teams are sponsored by local construction firms, IT outfits and resident colonies. Matches begin with toss photos and end with highlight reels engineered for Instagram. Visibility becomes the currency that turns a weekend wrist-spinner into a local Rashid Khan. This boom extends beyond the pitch. Behind every player stands a value chain: coaches, physios, trainers, indoor facility owners, jersey printers, bat repair specialists, videographers, analysts, and vendors. As Manzoor puts it: “Local cricket is not just matches. It’s an entire supply chain. Bats, pads, shoes, physio sessions, analytics— someone somewhere is earning because a kid decided to play cricket.” Families have recalibrated their aspirations. A decade ago, a cricket career meant uncertainty; now it feels like career adjacency . Parents no longer ask if cricket has a future; they ask how fast their child can climb the ladder. The result is a new sporting middle class that is knocking it out of the stands; but under the spotlights of a national stadium. Youth who may never become Suryakumar Yadav or Jasprit Bumrah, but are auctioned for lakhs of rupees like Simarjeet Singh or Nitish Rana, can still build a life orbiting the sport. It all began in 2019 when cricket enterprenuer Dipak Kumar Singh sensed this untapped market. That year, he founded SportsCube Center for Excellence, Gurugram. He explain- es his plan: “Structured training was no longer optional. Parents were ready to spend. Kids were ready to commit.” SportsCube began small but the demand for training was relentless. Today 3,000 players train there with , former Ranji and IPL pros; there are proper indoor nets, a playing ground, a gym and even hostel facilities for out-of-towners. Fees are reasaonable compared to the rewards: `45,000 for a two-month residential programme and `25,000 for local trainees. What’s taking shape across India is a parallel cricket economy with heroes, heartbreaks, mid-season transfers, bidding wars, spectators, scouting networks and livelihoods for those who play train, , manage and document. And as India witnesses another frenzy—the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup kicked off on February 7—somewhere under the floodlights in Gurugram or Ghaziabad, a teenager nails a cover drive. A camera captures it. A commentator adds spice. A sponsor takes note. A team owner files the name away One clip, one . contract, one kid at a time—the new cricket economy keeps moving. On a chilly Friday at Gurgaon’s Nawada ground, 23-year-old Amaan Alvi walked back to the boundary six runs short of a fifty He , . scored 44—crisp drives, busy singles, and a late cut that drew applause from strangers leaning on motorbikes. “I wanted that 50,” he rues. “But a day is a day Moments later, he .” pocketed his `5,000 match fee, as routine now as taping his bat. For Amaan, this is a job that pays his bills and funds his travel across Delhi, NCR, Punjab, Gujarat, and Kashmir. “This is our livelihood, our full-time job.” What changed everything was data. On CricHeroes, a scoring and statistics app with over 40 million local cricketers, Amaan is a star with 1,500+ matches and 200+ Man of the Match awards. “Numbers speak louder than anything else,” he says, scrolling through graphs like a trader. His numbers convert directly into cash: `4,000–`6,000 per match in Turn to page 2 (From above) Spectators enjoying a local tournament; Winners posing with the trophy Reading the Pitch Players bought at local auctions for `20,000`50,000 a season Monthly crikceting income can touch `60,000`1,50,000 `45,000 is often the training fee for a two-month residential programme and `25,000 for day trainees Players are scouted for bigger tournaments like DPL, State Premiere Leagues and even IPL from such local leagues Players get `4,000-`6,000 per match in Delhi; `8,000-`15,000 outside NCR Teams are backed by construction firms, IT outfits, resident colonies, media houses Scoring platform CricHeroes boast over 4 crore players A single match can cost `15,000, and with advanced streaming and commentary, it can go up to `2-3 lakh