From the Editor
Welcome to the all-new ESPNcricinfo
The site is now optimised for mobile platforms and presents a unified experience for all users
Sambit Bal
20-Jul-2017
Welcome to the new ESPNcricinfo experience, where everything has changed and yet nothing has.
Ours isn't a medium for standing still, and ESPNcricinfo has evolved constantly over the years, adding new content, new voices and new platforms, but like all major design interventions, our latest makeover is an adoption of an idea. It's a simple yet profound one, and it has you at the centre.
No other device - in fact, we could venture as far as to say no single other thing - has become as central to daily living as the mobile phone. Recent studies say that the number of mobile phones could soon overtake the number of the people on the planet. On average we check our phones between 114 to 225 times a day, and end up touching them - tapping, typing, swiping and clicking - over 2000 times a day.
Full postAn explanation
On why a column on the site was taken down
Sambit Bal
14-Aug-2016
Journalism does not merely grant its practitioners a vantage point from which to chronicle all things significant, it also obliges them to be guardians of the truth and keepers of the public conscience. We are hardly infallible, and trying to be worthy of our ideals is a constant endeavour. Journalism never was, and never should be, just another profession: the foundations of democracy would be significantly weaker without journalistic scrutiny.
Occasionally we are required to turn our gaze inwards and judge ourselves by the standards we apply to the rest of the world. A couple of weeks ago our attention was drawn to an exceedingly rare occurrence on our site: a portion of a piece by one of our most valued columnists bore striking similarities to parts of a piece published in the Economist a few days prior.
Ed Smith, the writer of that piece on ESPNcricinfo, has written for the site for over four years. He has combined intellect, erudition, research, and curiosity about human behaviour with first-hand knowledge of sport to bring to our readers a series of pieces that have provided a perspective on sport and sportspersons not usually offered by sportswriters.
However, this particular piece of work did not meet our editorial standards for sourcing, and since the stark resemblance between some paragraphs was impossible to ignore, we decided to insert an attribution immediately, and have subsequently decided to take the piece down altogether.
Full postThose four red letters are back on TV in India
What the launch of SONYESPN means for you and ESPNcricinfo
Sambit Bal
17-Jan-2016
For many years we have been producing a sports diary in India as a little New Year present for friends and associates, and in return we receive some charming notes about how much they love it. But in 2014, this message popped on my Facebook timeline. It was from a former employee of ESPNStar, a prominent figure on the sports-management circuit. It read:
"I am not a big one for brands, but ESPN is different. To not be able to switch on a television set [in India] and see the ESPN logo really disturbed me at some level. And then Cricinfo's 2014 diary arrived… it's just so reassuring to see those 4 letters in red"
It has stayed with me not merely because it was unusual but for the wider truth it conveyed. To us, it was a reaffirmation of what we feel in our bones.
Full postBigger, better: ESPNcricinfo's new iPhone app
In keeping with the idiom of change in the digital world, our new iPhone app is here and it is designed to give you a better user-experience with more functionalities
Sambit Bal
06-Jun-2013
While pronouncing change as the only constant in life, it is unlikely that the Greek philosopher Heraclitus would have foreseen life a millennium and a half ahead. His words, however, now ring truest in the digital world: change is not merely the constant, but the leitmotif. And it is the most exciting part of the ride.
The cricket world has been gloomy recently but life would be morbid without optimism. A new tournament is about to begin, and we are delighted to present to you a new version of our iPhone app. The Android one is due to follow in a few days.
It seems like only yesterday that we launched our first iPhone app, but two years is about time for an upgrade. The website has changed, as have technology and your expectations. With the latest version, we bring not merely a new design but, as you would expect from the new product, a far better user experience and many more functionalities.
Full postComments on fixing stories
We haven't invited readers' views on the latest spot-fixing scandal because of libel issues
Sambit Bal
19-May-2013
Ever since the arrest of three Rajasthan Royals players early on Thursday morning, ESPNcricinfo has covered the story following a few guidelines: Accuracy, fairness, and mindful of libel laws.
This means that when we are reporting on the case itself, we report only what is officially disclosed. We feel we have managed that so far, despite obvious difficulties and disadvantages.
This policy has also been extended to our story comments - we are bound to follow the strict libel laws that exist not just in India but in various other countries including the UK and the US. It is standard practice for us to disable comments on sensitive stories - especially those that deal with corruption - to eliminate the risk of libelous comments being published.
We will enable comments on selected stories going forward but these comments will be subject to the same standards of scrutiny as any story on our site. We will not be publishing comments that make allegations, draw inferences, or impute anything beyond the facts and we will always, in this matter, err on the side of caution. We would ask you to comment on the merits of the story itself, not on the merits of the case or the investigation.
Full postThe importance of risking failure
A Day With Dravid was not all it could have been, but glitches are best looked at as building blocks rather than setbacks
Sambit Bal
26-Mar-2013
A Day With Dravid was a dream realised for the group of fans who managed to share space with their hero, and their joy alone was worth the effort that went into organising the Hangout, but we ought to own up that the experience was far from ideal for those who tuned in to watch it live on the site. We understand your frustration because we felt it too, perhaps far more deeply. After all that we put into it, that hurt.
There is no shame in owning up to faults. In this case, it wasn't because of a lack of effort or because of carelessness. ESPNcricinfo is what it is because it has always embraced new ideas. Fear of failure has never been a disincentive; the prospect of success is far more alluring. When something doesn't work the way it was meant to, it is still invaluable for the lessons it brings.
We apologise to those for whom the audio quality was poor, but not for the ambition of trying to do this live online, or for trying to give ten of you the opportunity to ask Rahul Dravid the questions that won you your places in the chat.
Full postPresenting The Cordon
Announcing a new section on the site: voices from outside the press box
Sambit Bal
28-Feb-2013
Allow me to introduce you to The Cordon, your destination for some of the most interesting cricket writing outside of the mainstream cricket media.
At ESPNcricinfo we take pride in the professionalism of our journalism, and we go to great lengths to keep our objectivity and integrity uncompromised, but we also have the humility and the good sense to recognise professional journalists and writers don't have a monopoly on ideas and original thought.
Readers trust journalists because it is their job to know. And because they are trained to combine their storytelling instincts with the requirement of rigour and honesty. They derive credibility as much from the weight of their personal work as from the reputations of the organisations they work for. Their environment guarantees checks and balances, and the proximity and access they gain to their subjects affords them a broader and deeper understanding of the nuances. Everybody can look, but a journalist is paid to see.
Full postSoul Man
Obituaries are hopelessly inadequate in a way. Frank Keating will never know what I owe him. I never got to know him well enough to tell him, but when I heard about his death on Friday evening it felt personal
Sambit Bal
25-Feb-2013
Obituaries are hopelessly inadequate in a way. Frank Keating will never know what I owe him. I never got to know him well enough to tell him, but when I heard about his death on Friday evening it felt personal. I have loved cricket ever since I became old enough to appreciate a sport but Keating was one of the people who drew me into the world of cricket writing.
It is now hard to imagine a life without the internet and I can't now recall where and when I first encountered Keating, but I remember how eagerly I lunged for the Guardian every time the bundle of international newspapers arrived on the news desk at my first job. Sometimes the papers came a few days later, and sometimes it went straight to the editor's desk, but when Tests were on in the English summer and I couldn't lay my hands on the Guardian at work, I would walk a few blocks to the British Council Library to read Keating. That also got me reading other sections of the newspaper and I have been a Guardian man ever since.
I have had my share of reading on cricket since, but the early memories are the most poignant and I remember Keating not for his insights into the game but for capturing its soul. There were writers who gave you a better understanding of technique and there were others who had a keener eye for detail but to Keating the characters mattered more.
Full postChoose your ESPNcricinfo homepage
We will not pretend this is a dazzling innovation. Even though ESPNcricinfo has run multiple homepages for years now, you have not had the option of choosing which one to set as your default
Sambit Bal
25-Feb-2013
We will not pretend this is a dazzling innovation. The practice of allowing users to select between various editions of website homepages has existed on the internet for many years. But even though ESPNcricinfo has run multiple homepages for years now, you have not had the option of choosing which one to set as your default.
It wasn't because we didn't trust you to make the right choice for yourself, but because we were unsure about how it would sit with our image of ourselves: as one site for one cricket world. Internationalism has always been the bedrock of our editorial policy. The content that we offer on the site is the same across the world. The writings of our correspondents and writers are informed with local knowledge, but the perspective is always global. We sometimes find ourselves reflecting on the irony when we are accused of being biased both in favour of and against the same team. We recognise nationalism as among the biggest curses of cricket coverage, and our writers are trained to steer clear of it.
So we have, unnecessarily perhaps, fretted a bit about the message offering editions will transmit. We needn't have.
Over the years we have grown our local coverage. We have desks in three time zones; we have correspondents in most major cricket-playing countries. We provide scorecards of every domestic tournament in the Test-playing nations. This year we covered English County Championship matches with men on the ground. And so, by going more local, we are more global than ever. The limitlessness of our medium allows us to expand our coverage continuously without making sacrifices: unlike in print, say, a new feature or a new section need not replace something.
Full postA question of cricket
Introducing our latest series, The Jury's Out, which is a highly subjective exploration of the beautiful facets in the game of cricket
Sambit Bal
25-Feb-2013
When you borrow an idea, making an acknowledgement is the decent thing to do. Our latest feature series, The Jury's Out, came out of a commission for Intelligent Life, a magazine that reads as well as it looks beautiful. Over a lovely meal in London, Tim de Lisle, the magazine's editor and my former editor at wisden.com, asked me a question: what did I think was the greatest sport in the world?
I am sure he knew my answer. And that's how I was drafted in to write for his magazine's Big Question feature, which had four other writers nominating their best sports. The challenge was to restrict my appreciation of cricket to 400 words (I ended up writing over 500), but it was a piece I enjoyed writing, and when the magazine came out, I enjoyed reading what the others had written.
The thing about good ideas is not merely how simple most of them appear with hindsight, but how silly they can make you feel. How did I not think of this before?
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