The only way to honour the memories of those who lost their lives in the stampede at Chinnaswamy on 4th of June is to continue talking about it.

We speak to Sarthak Dev, who wrote an excellent piece for News Laundry.

You can read The story of a disaster: An IPL win, a city’s joy, and a tragedy that was waiting to happen here.

Tarutr runs BestofCricket Substack where he publishes a Daily Newsletter with the best cricket stories (text, audio & video). You can read & subscribe here.

Trigger Warning

Mentions of the Tragedy at Chinnaswamy are discussed at multiple points in the episode. There is an outline and trigger warning at the start of the episode.

We are joined by Dave, Shay, Richa, Aditya, Tarutr & MV in this episode and there are 5 RCB fans who sent in voice notes on how they felt about winning the first league title.

What is covered in this episode?

1. RCB Fans from across the world share what it felt to win the first IPL title. (1:48 to 9:42)

2. We speak to Tarutr Malhotra from BestofCricket about the tragedy at Chinnaswamy, the commotion, lack of communication and why he decided to exit the celebrations. (9:42 to 36:13)

He has also written a piece. Read it here.

3. We start the IPL review with introduction of the guests (36:38 to 38:07), speak about the tragedy at Chinnaswamy (38:07 to 45:07) & Move to the IPL review which continues right till the end!

In this episode, we have long time listeners Saurabh, Shay & Fahad to discuss their memories of the IPL.

It’s a great mix of folks from varying age groups and their association with the league. While Saurabh is largely neutral despite having a soft corner for SRH & RR, Fahad loves CSK & Shay is an RCB fan from North India.

It gives us an insight into how the IPL has evolved and how the evolution affects the people watching it.

Are they still as chuffed at watching the IPL from their first viewing of the league? Listen in.

We sat down to record the Origin Story of our love with the game.

We discussed -

- Our first playgrounds (societies, mohalla etc)

- How our teams were decided?

- What were the various toss instruments?

- Specific rules for batting (1D, 2D) and bowling (fast, knee height no balls etc)

All of the above across the country since the panel was diverse and we wrapped up with our favourite story of playing Cricket.

In our series of episodes dealing with the lack of cricket in Indian cricket coverage and the rise of jingoism and demi-god worship in cricket media, we have with us accomplished cricket analyst and writer, Gurkirat S Gill.

Sarthak is a writer and music composer. He writes a Substack called Lines on The Grass, and you can find some of his other written work at IndianExpress and EuroSport. He uploads his music on Instagram and YouTube, but only when his morning coffee hits the right spot.

Read Lines on the Grass

Listen to Sarthak's music here & you can follow him on Twitter as well.

In this episode, we have both the Adityas, Raj & MV.

We discuss -

- The Hero Worshipping of Dhoni, Kohli & Rohit

- Twitter Fanwars as an extension of how Cricket is packaged

- Inceldom and the violent nature of Cricket discourse

- The Loss of Tenderness in sport

- No room for the stories of 7/10 cricketers (The Hanuma Viharis & Mayank Agarwals)

- Sexualisation of Women in & associated with Sport with Cameramen & how society reacts to 5 second clips of Women in stadia

- Lack of Narrative & History in Cricket Commentary

- BCCI's lack of interest in Women's Cricket

Today, we have with us Sharda Ugra, a sports journalist for over 30 years who now writes what she wants, when she wants and where she wants. You can read her work in the Hindustan Times and her coverage of the BCCI in The Wire and The Caravan, amongst other publications.

Along with Sharda, we have Swaroop who has been with The New Indian Express for over a decade and a Red Ink Award winner. He has covered multiple Hockey World cups, Asian Games, Cricket World Cups and, very recently covered the World Chess Championships.

Richa, Aditya & MV join them to discuss -

- BCCI Central Contracts for Women , CA's plan for women's cricket and grassroots investment

- Why are Ranji Cricketers are paid so little, and why does the BCCI want Int'l cricketers to prioritise domestic over IPL

- Saudi Money & Golf - How will they move forward with Cricket

- IPL salaries vs the World's best leagues (Swaroop's piece is linked here)

- Indian Cricketers Association - The Late Anshuman Gaekwad and current President V Chamundeswarnath, a sexual harassment accused and also an IPL Governing Council Member.

Recommendations

Sharda

1. Temples, Tombs, & Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz
2. Acquired Podcast on IPL (It's only 4.5 hours long)
3. Sky Sports Podcast with Nasser & Athers
4. Zeteo Podcast founded by Mehdi Hasan

Swaroop

1. The Business of Sport Podcast - Listen here.
2. Indian Summers by Sharda Ugra & John Wright, which he used as reference material for his Master’s thesis

Aditya - The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha

Richa - Mystery novels by Tana French

In this episode, we have Richa and MV joined by Tarutr Malhotra from Best of Cricket.

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Best of Cricket scours the internet for the best cricket stories and brings them to you straight to your Whatsapp. If that's not enough, they also publish original stories themselves and deepdives into the cricket media landscape and how the game is covered since they're looking at everything from a Bird's eye view and up close, daily. You should subscribe if you haven't already.

During the WPL, they covered all the games with reporters from all over the world talking about stories beyond the scorecard. You can find their WPL coverage here.

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On to the episode -

- MI are WPL 2025 Champions!

- We start with the final. What went right for MI & what went wrong for DC?

- Gujarat's last minute run to the playoff spot

- We’ll talk about scheduling and what should change next year- moving away from this to the home and away concept?

- ⁠Revisit the teams at the bottom of the table what went badly for them

- We discuss Retentions for each team

We finally end with Awards for the Season -

1. Moment of the Season
2. Best Young Gun
3. ⁠Best Redemption Arc
4. Who won the Ashes? Did Australian players do better or English players?
5. 1 Retention and 1 Discard for each team