Cirinfo

Information – Match postponed due to rain • T20I 2nd • Mount Maunganui NZ (11/20 ov) 72/2 BAN Bangladesh chose venue. Series Report Schedule

Results • 2nd Test • Melbourne AUS 318 & 262 PAK (T: 317) 264 & 237 Australia won in 79 sessions Schedule Report

LIVE • 18th Match • BBL 2023 • T20 • Melbourne (Docklands) AS (7.6 / 20 ov) 53/1 MR Strikers pick. Video series schedule

Get Your Digital Copy Of Espn The Magazine Espn Cricinfo 2015 World Cup Issue

Drinks • 2nd Informal Test • Benoni SA-A 263 IND-A (54.4 ov) 185/4 Day 4 – India’s journey by 78 runs. Schedule series

1st T20I • Sharjah United Arab Emirates Afghanistan Today 2:00 PM Match Starts in 5 Hours 9 Minutes Schedule

Cancel • Match 8 • Super Smash • T20 • Plymouth’s new AUCK CD match abandoned without a goal on the table.

Results • 1st Test • Centurion IND 245 & 131 SA 408 Schedule Reports South Africa win the series by one round and 32 runs.

Cricinfo Today Match

Result • ODI 1st • Wankhede IND-W 282/8 AUS-W (46.3 / 50 ov, T: 283) 285/4 AUS WMN won by 6 wickets (21 overs left) Schedule Report Series

This article was first published in 2013 to celebrate the 20th anniversary. Read part of Badri Seshadri’s account here First Peter 100,000 Peter Griffiths brings a strong connection from the scoring and statistics department. At that time he was probably the cricket scorer’s secretary and statistician. Alex Balfour works all kinds of jobs, one of which is being a freelance journalist. He did something on Cricinfo. That attracted him to Cricinfo and started working as a volunteer. He is always ready to write a copy of any document we need to write or present. Also, he has a good connection with finance in London, having done a lot of research during the dotcom era. A company that Alex came up with is called Pangolin. It later renamed itself sportal.com and later collapsed. They are companies run by certain sports executives who negotiate rights and broadcasts with certain TV companies or other companies. It is primarily driven by football. They have the idea of putting together a big sports network in Europe. They said they would give us £100,000. It was our first proper funding that replaced almost nothing. Big deal. They said we would pay them for writing a business plan. If they like the business plan, they will invest in us as per the agreed rating. If they don’t like the offer or we don’t like it, we have to refund, and if we don’t have a refund, because when you take £100,000 you start paying for it – they’ll accept advertising on our site. They’re building a sports network and they need to advertise and they know we have a good audience base. We said very well. Nothing to lose. Pay for advertising, this is a last resort. So we take the money and start using it. Simon has set up an office in Hartham and I go there often. Alex would come over in a couple of days for some money, do some work, I’d go there, stay there for a month and come back – things like that. But now more people can be hired in India. With this kind of money, even a few thousand pounds allowed, we can hire people in India to do the scoreboard and other work. Thus the India Office was established. Before that, in ’98, when I started traveling to the UK, we followed my previous manager, Murari Venkataraman. Got Murari and some staff. In the end, we probably shouldn’t have hired people, but we hired about 60-70 people, most of whom used the scorecards as a starting point, whereas we only had one staff in the UK. David Richards is still going strong. is active. He brought into sports broadcasting Michael Seat, a New Zealander who created TWI and loved CSI. The New Zealand Cricket Council and the Australian Cricket Council backed him and offered him a TV production deal and a TV rights marketing deal. “I’ll give you 3 million,” David Richards told Simon to meet Michael Watt. Watt asked no questions. After a few meetings he said: Do you want money? I will pay. I will give you 3 million, you take it and build Cricinfo. It goes beyond a handshake. Simon, myself, Balfour and Griffiths went to see him in his room, shook hands, and he told his accountant to hand over three shares worth 1 million each. She later said she would have a 25% stake in the company in exchange for the pound. 3 million. This is an angelic covenant of a kind never heard of before. So the money came first, the deal came later, in less than half a page, covering only three points: 25% of the stock, the first option given to them, and if someone came to invest, they had the right to sell their shares first. First. or should not be sold. They didn’t even ask for a board chair or anything. So the first fund came in August 99. Simon and I tried to write a business plan and we couldn’t because we didn’t know what a business plan was. So we got a document from Coopers & Lybrand that talks about how to write a business plan. We sit in a bar and try to write. Sometimes Alex joins us, but mostly it’s me and Simon. We always talk about the same thing: we will cover all international matches, we will have the same audio and video. Michael Watt’s people asked us to move the pangolin off the road. He knows everybody, so let him call them and get these kids out, and they’ll pay you without interest. So we paid £100,000 of the initial £1m and ended the relationship and owned 25% of the company. By the time the money came in, the hurricane activity started happening to us in terms of investment, and we weren’t ready for it. We really have no clue. Alex Balfour is a business journalist and would be the one with the most clues. He knows the stock and the valuation and how to invest money in the company, and we’ll meet at his house and we’ll talk about what to do. Declan Murphy, Watt’s investment manager, began looking for investments. Maybe he wants to convert this 3 million to x million. So he starts marketing saying this is a company called Cricinfo and you can invest in it. He started bringing all kinds of deals. This is too much for us. There was a sudden influx of money – £100,000 comes out of nowhere and then £3 million happens to you and you’ve done nothing. Some cricket coverage was ongoing – the 99 World Cup happened, which Alex handled. Completely. At that time, he had a problem with ECB running the official website and he didn’t want to give us access to the stadium. But our coverage of the ’99 World Cup was a resounding success. We can earn more ad revenue in US or UK than official website. Obviously, the ECB would be very angry about that. It was the last World Cup to be governed by the Cricket Council before the ICC took over, sponsored and managed it. Our customer profitability is growing, money is coming in, but we have no idea, no plan, no strategy. Simon wanted complete control. If we wanted to sell a company in 1999, imagine what price someone would buy it for. But Simon had the idea that everything started as a voluntary investment, so we can only hold ourselves accountable. Simon never had any money and that’s where the conflict started because at the end you had Michael Watt and his money – he seemed like a nice guy but his manager Declan Murphy was all about the money. So Murphy said, “Let’s make a deal, get investors.” Simon said, no, that’s plausible. We had our five stressful meetings, including Declan. He was angry that the dotcom market was a bunch of lunatics sitting there not understanding what it was saying. We agreed to give Watt a 25% stake, but only issue two shares at the time, both of which were acquired by Simon.