Blockchain Scorecard: In Search of the Silent Revolution in Cricket Data

Last night, sitting in a London flat, I opened a notebook where I had written the strangest number of my fourteen-year commentary career — zero. Tell me, why would a zero appear on a cricket scorecard? Zero is the only number that is the lowest indivisible part of any game. Today I start from that zero. Cricket's immense data is now in the hands of a new technology called blockchain. And my hunch is that this technology is changing the power structure of cricket from within, most of which is still hidden from our eyes. Cricket is no longer just a game on the field, it is a data network of eleven thousand points. Every ball, every no-ball, every shot's tracking, player fitness, sale price, biometric information — everything is gathered together. But who owns this vast amount of data? The ICC, national boards, franchises, or that broadcaster who delivers this data from a viewer in Bangladesh to a customer in Canada? The answer to this question remains like the elephant — whoever catches a part of it knows only that part. Here enters blockchain. A blockchain is an immutable ledger. By definition, every transaction on this ledger is recorded publicly, not under the control of any single authority. Imagine if player performance data truly entered this ledger, then anyone could verify — whether this player's innings really matches other innings. Today we don't have that ability. After the match, we see the data, we see a number, and there is no independent way to verify whether it is really correct. I built Mbappé's valuation model two years ago, using only data from 9,800 shots. But the biggest flaw in that model was the sourcing chain of the data. If the shot data is wrong from the original source, then no model can fix that error. In the 2026-18 season, my analysis of Burnley's 16th place was written — 39 points with 12.4 goals conceded more than expected. It was correct, but I didn't know where that data came from, from whom. This blind trust hides cricket's biggest gap. Blockchain may try to fill this gap. Say, in a tournament, every ball's outcome is written to a distributed ledger, where no single party can unilaterally change it. Then the viewer themselves verify the tournament's correct result. And who benefits? First, bookmakers — as fraudulent matches and data manipulation decrease, market transparency increases. Second, fantasy league users — whose scoring directly depends on official data, they can automatically verify. But I'm not joking. Blockchain is no magic. And in the semiconductor age, not everything should be done on blockchain. In 2026, I worked on a system that was a 9,000-point spreadsheet. What percentage of that data should be on blockchain? The answer is — almost zero. Because cricket data is enormous in volume, but slow in rate of change. A ball is bowled, then nothing happens for 30 seconds. And a chain transaction takes seconds to minutes to verify. Imagine if we create a blockchain transaction for every ball, then a 50-over match will have over a hundred thousand transactions, and each will require a gas fee. This cost is still prohibitive, and my fear is it will be in the future too. Therefore real blockchain use works better when it touches less. For example, player transfers, contract terms, franchise ownership, and entirely new player record tokenization. Here blockchain's power can be fully utilized. Especially for cricketers, who often come from small boards, small clubs, their contract terms are still verbal or on paper. If these terms are on a public ledger, the possibility of irregularity decreases greatly. Here lies the difference between English cricket and La Liga or English football. In Europe, player contracts, transfer fees, agent commissions — everything is under the regulator's purview. But in Asia, especially Bangladesh and Pakistan, people still haven't seen a contract. I myself have been thinking about a problem for at least six years — if that cricketer has really signed a contract, who will verify it? Even today the answer is not found. Can blockchain give that answer? Technically, yes. But practically, no. Because the chain doesn't solve real-world problems, rather it creates a new problem. If contract terms are on blockchain, then who will decide whether it is valid? A trusted party is needed to make that decision. And who is that party? Cricket has no single central regulator. The ICC exists, but its power is limited. Therefore, blockchain can create a crack in cricket, but cannot break the whole structure. For cricket's data to be truly transparent, two things are needed: a trusted proof process, and second, an independent verification institution. Blockchain can be a tool for the first, but there is still no institutional solution for the second. I am going to publish a report next week, where I will show how cricket data has become an international market without any verification method. In that report I will propose a blockchain-based data-sharing model, but in a limited scope — only for franchise leagues. Because there competition is higher, money is higher, and the requirement for transparency is highest. Final word, in my eyes blockchain is not cricket's solution, but it raises a question that has plagued cricket for a long time. And that question is: whose truth is this game? The field's, the technology's, or those people who see that data and believe it? In the coming days, cricket's biggest crisis will not be technical, but of trust. And there, blockchain may build a bridge, if we learn to build that bridge properly.