Cricinfo editorial who's who /

Sambit Bal (Editor)
Sambit Bal took to journalism at the age of 19 after realising that he wasn't fit for anything else, and to cricket journalism 14 years later when it dawned on him that it provided the perfect excuse to watch cricket in the office. Among other things, he has bowled legspin that turned when the ball occasionally landed in front of the batsman, laid out the comics page of a city evening paper, covered crime, urban development and politics, and edited Gentleman, a monthly features magazine. He joined Wisden in 2001 and was the founder editor of Wisden Asia Cricket. He still spends his spare time watching cricket.

Martin Williamson (executive editor)
Martin Williamson joined the Wisden website in its planning stages in 2001 after failing (like so many) to make his millions in the internet boom when managing editor of Sportal. Before that he was in charge of Sky Sports Online and helped to launch and run Sky News Online. With a preference for all things old (except his wife and children) he has recently confounded colleagues by displaying an uncharacteristic fondness for Twenty20 cricket. His enthusiasm for the game is, sadly, not matched by his ability, but he remains convinced that he might be a late developer and perseveres in the hope of an England call-up with his middle-order batting and non-spinning offbreaks.

Jayaditya Gupta (executive editor, India)
A football lover and a veteran of the print media, Jayaditya sold out on both to join the crazy gang at ESPNcricinfo. It's a decision that often left him wondering whether he'd stumbled into the wrong room by mistake, till he realised that many of his colleagues switch the TV channel from cricket to football when they think nobody's watching. He does have cricketing heroes: Viv Richards and Steve Waugh share space with Steve Coppell (the player and manager) and Bryan Robson (the player!). Having covered two world cups (the football version) and a Champions League final, he can now set his sights on fulfilling other ambitions - including the launch of "Footinfo". Watch this space for more details...

Peter English (Australasia editor)
Peter English is regularly accused of being English by Australians, especially during an Ashes series, but has lived most of his life in Queensland and risked re-breaking ribs by cheering the state's original Sheffield Shield win in 1994-95. He did spend three years in England but never considered swapping his Australian passport, mainly because his batting was so miserable during occasional appearances in Yorkshire's Wetherby League. In London, Peter worked for Wisden Cricket Monthly and the Guardian before returning to Australia, where he joined ESPNcricinfo in 2004. For exercise, he now chases his two children.

Andrew Miller (UK editor)
Andrew Miller was saved from a life of drudgery in the City when his car, God bless it, caught fire on the way to an interview. He took this as a sign and instead fled to Pakistan where he witnessed England's historic victory in the twilight at Karachi (or thought he did, at any rate - it was too dark to tell). He then joined Wisden Online when it was set up in 2001, and soon graduated from put-upon photocopier to a writer with a penchant for comment and cricket on the subcontinent. In addition to Pakistan, he has covered England tours in Sri Lanka, South Africa... and Bangladesh, where one local website dubbed him "the Father of Bangladesh cricket".

Osman Samiuddin (Pakistan editor)
He spent the first half of his life pretending he discovered reverse swing with a tennis ball half-covered with electrical tape. The second half of his life was spent discovering spiritual fulfillment in the world of Pakistani advertising and marketing. Having not found any fulfillment there, the third half of his life will be devoted to convincing people that he did discover reverse swing. And occasionally writing about cricket. And learning mathematics.

Dileep Premachandran (associate editor)
Dileep Premachandran gave up the joys of studying thermodynamics and strength of materials with a view to following in the footsteps of his literary heroes. Instead, he wound up at the Free Press Journal in Mumbai, writing on sport and politics before Gentleman gave him a column called Replay. A move to MyIndia.com followed, where he teamed up with Sambit Bal, and he arrived at ESPNCricinfo after having also worked for Cricket Talk and total-cricket.com. Sunil Gavaskar and Greg Chappell were his early cricketing heroes, though attempts to emulate their silken touch had hideous results. He considers himself obscenely fortunate to have watched live the two greatest comebacks in sporting history - India against invincible Australia at the Eden Gardens in 2001, and Liverpool's inc-RED-ible resurrection in the 2005 Champions' League final. He lives in Bangalore with his wife, who remains astonishingly tolerant of his sporting obsessions.

S Rajesh (stats editor)
Every week the Numbers Game takes a look at the story behind the stats, with an original slant on facts and figures. The column is edited by S Rajesh, ESPNcricinfo's stats editor in Bangalore. He did an MBA in marketing, and then worked for a year in advertising, before deciding to chuck it in favour of a job which would combine the pleasures of watching cricket and writing about it. The intense office cricket matches were an added bonus.

George Binoy (assistant editor)
After a major in Economics and nine months in a financial research firm, George realised that equity, capital and the like were not for him. He decided that he wanted to be one of those lucky few who did what they love at work. Alas, his prodigious talent was never spotted and he had to reconcile himself to the fact that he would never earn his money playing cricket for his country, state or even district. He jumped at the opportunity to work for ESPNcricinfo and is now confident of mastering the art of office cricket.

Andrew McGlashan (assistant editor)
Andrew arrived at ESPNcricinfo via Manchester and Cape Town, after finding the assistant editor at a weak moment as he watched England's batting collapse in the Newlands Test. Andrew began his cricket writing as a freelance covering Lancashire during 2004 when they were relegated in the County Championship. In fact, they were top of the table when he began reporting on them but things went dramatically downhill. He likes to let people know that he is a supporter of county cricket, a fact his colleagues will testify to and bemoan in equal quantities.

Nishi Narayanan (staff writer)
Nishi studied journalism because she didn't want to study at all. As she spent most of the time at j-school stationed in front of the TV watching cricket her placement officer had no choice but to send out a desperate plea to the editor of ESPNcricinfo to hire her. Though some of the senior staff was suspicious at that a diploma in journalism was the worst thing that could happen to ESPNcricinfo and she did nothing to allay them, she continues to log in everyday and do her two bits for cricket.

Brydon Coverdale (assistant editor)
Possibly the only person to win a headline-writing award for a title with the word "heifers" in it, Brydon decided agricultural journalism wasn't for him when he took up his position with ESPNcricinfo in Melbourne. His cricketing career peaked with an unbeaten 85 in the seconds for a small team in rural Victoria on a day when they could not scrounge up 11 players and Brydon, tragically, ran out of partners to help him reach his century. He is also a compulsive TV game-show contestant and has appeared on half a dozen shows in Australia.

Liam Brickhill (assistant editor)
Liam grew up hating cricket. That relationship began to thaw during England's ill-fated 1997 tour of Zimbabwe, which set the scene for an epiphanic conversion during Henry Olonga's triple-wicket miracle against India at the 1999 World Cup. He had a brief spell with ESPNcricinfo in 2004, before heading off to Rhodes University to study journalism and English literature. After four years of diligent work in various university cricket nets and the odd student bar, he returned to the fold in 2010 and all was forgiven. He still holds out hope that his time with ESPNcricinfo will somehow lead to a "right place at the right time" Test debut, maintains a burning passion for associate nation profiles, and holds the office tea mug-carrying record, with five.

Akhila Ranganna (assistant editor, Audio)
Having a father who played in the Ranji Trophy against the likes of the legendary Pankaj Roy, cricket was in Akhila's blood. When a bachelor's degree in Literature was augmented by a master's in Mass Communication, she should have known that a career in journalism beckoned. But it took a joyless stint in public relations to push her to ESPN Star Sports, where she worked with the Sportscenter team and covered countless preparatory camps at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. As a happy coincidence this ran concurrently with a hobby stint as a radio jockey for a station playing old Hindi film music. She then joined ESPNcricinfo's audio team, where she has worked since October 2006.

Sahil Dutta (assistant editor)
Sahil Dutta grew up supporting England during the 90s. Despite this, he still enjoys the game. His unrequited passions for Graeme Hick and, in latter years, Vikram Solanki gave him a stoicism that guided him through an Economics degree and a stint working at the European Parliament. He maintains the purest love for Tests and the whims of legspin bowling and still harbours hope that he could be the answer to England's long search for a mystery spinner. As it is, his most exciting cricketing experience was planning a trip to Australia for the 2006-07 Ashes with two utterly indifferent friends. Unfortunately his lung collapsed shortly before his planned departure and the pair were left to wander around from Test to Test, unprepared and clueless. Any comparisons with England are far too obvious to make. That cancelled holiday inspired an Ashes blog which led, via some tea-making at the Wisden Cricketer, to the ESPNcricinfo towers.

Nitin Sundar (sub-editor)
Nitin spent his formative years perfecting the art of landing the googly, before blossoming into a book-cricket specialist. More excellence followed in the underarm version of the game before, like the majority of India's misguided youth, he started taking studies seriously. After four forgettable years of electrical engineering, followed by a rigorous MBA and 16 months in the strategy consulting industry, he began to ponder life's more profound issues. Such as the angle made by Brian Lara's bat with the horizontal at the peak of his back-lift. A move to ESPNcricinfo followed and Nitin is now a prolific nurdler in office cricket, with a questionable technique against the short ball.