The Empty Notebook and Eleven Cities: What Sells at the IPL Auction and What Remains Unseen

I was among the first to arrive at the auction hall in Bengaluru that February morning. On the table in front of me was a coffee, a spreadsheet with a purse-efficiency model, and a small pocket notebook in which I wrote no numbers that day. Six hundred player names sat in a queue on a large screen, and the sound of a thirty-year-old cricketer tapping the white table with his handkerchief still lingers in my ears. Two days later, when more than two hundred names returned unsold, I closed my laptop and wrote a page in that same notebook that stays with me today. Let me be clear: I am writing about the auction of that year when franchises collectively bid over a purse of nearly six hundred crore rupees and more than a hundred players went back unsold. I was inside the hall, not in the press gallery, and what I saw was entirely different from the camera angle shown on television. The player I was watching that day was a thirty-one-year-old captain from Vidarbha who had scored over four hundred runs in that season's Ranji Trophy and whose name never came up in the bidding. In the bylanes of domestic cricket, this is my oldest lesson: the player who scores runs on the Ranji screen and the player who sells on the auction screen are not the same person. Before the auction I had built a spreadsheet because on one side was my sports management degree and on the other twenty years of notebooks. The model suggested a few names, and the hall dismissed half of them within minutes. That is when I understood that the auction is a room of economics, not cricket. What sells here is often fast bowling or a small-format statistic, and what does not sell is often the essential work of domestic cricket. The most important thing that day was not shown on any screen: the silence in the corridor outside the hall. Every time a player's name went unsold, a soft sigh escaped from his agent's chair and three seconds later the next name arrived. I saw several players sitting outside that day with water bottles in their hands and the same expression I had seen in Dharamsala when the stadium emptied after rain. The hardest moment in sport does not happen on the field; it happens in a room where no one shouts. To be honest, that day I also understood why the two days of the auction feel more like a business fair than a sport. Two hundred and seventeen players were sold and more than two hundred were not. Of those sold, many had limited international capital but a record of scoring quickly; and of those unsold, many had proof of fifty overs of bowling in four-day cricket. The arithmetic of the auction does not read the economics of domestic cricket; it reads only the numbers visible on television. As I write this, another image comes to mind from that same summer. On a road in Jammu I was looking for a twenty-two-year-old bowler who had taken twenty-two wickets that season and whose ball speed had been recorded at one hundred and fifty-seven kilometres per hour. Outside his house was a landlady who gave him morning tea, and his grandmother who asked when his name would appear in the newspaper. I had not gone there to decide whether he was a future superstar, but to see what the mornings behind that pace look like. And when I saw him, the first thing that came to mind was that the auction would sell his pace, but his grandmother's question would not sell anywhere. Now look at the other picture of that room. After the same auction, several teams spent large parts of their purse on fast bowlers and foreign players, but the number of players on domestic tournament pitches waiting to be sold in the next auction did not decrease. I wrote a line in my notebook: the auction is like a mirror; it shows only the face that is in the most light in the room, and no one sees the one sitting in the dark. In that Ranji season I saw another thing I never forget. A domestic match had fewer than four hundred spectators, but an old man sitting at a small shop outside the same ground told me he had not missed a single domestic match in thirty years. He said big players come and go, but this ground remains. This is the same feeling I saw on the faces of the ground staff clearing hail at five in the morning in Dharamsala. That is why when I write about the big sums of the auction, I think first of the player sitting in that room whose name went unsold. I know that if I write only in the language of numbers, I will lose the grandmother's question in Jammu waiting for her grandson's newspaper. And I know that if I write only in emotion, I will lose the numbers that show where the auction money goes and where it does not. For me, the way to write is this: first stand in the room and look, then tell the price of that room. I say this because a lot is written about auction numbers, but less about the people behind them. I remember one year I followed a player who went unsold. He was the Vidarbha captain, thirty-one, who had scored the most runs in domestic cricket that season. I asked him what he did on auction day. He said he dropped his daughter at school, came home, made tea, and did not watch TV. When I asked why, he said he knew his name would not come up. It was not the confidence that comes from victory; it was the realism that comes from experience. That player told me the three weeks before the auction are the hardest for him, because every phone call offers some hope and every newspaper prints some possibility. But the silence after auction day is heavier than any defeat. He said he has learned that silence, because he has heard it not once but many times in his career. As I write this, I remember that old notebook of mine that got soaked in the Dharamsala rain. In it I had written the five a.m. air, the sound of ground staff shoes, and the snow line of the Dhauladhar. I wrote the score in the fourth paragraph. Even today, when I write a big report, I follow the same method: one image, one person, one number. In the auction report I did the same. First the image of the player sitting outside the hall, then the purse number, then the story of that room which no screen shows. Now let us come to the big question that rises after every auction and gets buried every year. The question is not which team made the best buy, but whether the auction money reaches the strong foundation of domestic cricket from which the next generation of players comes. When I go to empty Ranji grounds and meet those shopkeepers who have not missed a match in thirty years, I feel that the distance between the auction's glare and domestic cricket's dust is the biggest story of this country's game. I am not saying the auction is bad. I am saying it is a mirror that shows only one face. And if we keep looking only at that face, we will forget the faces standing behind it. For me, the job of journalism is to go behind the mirror too and write what is there. That is why every season I follow a player who did not sell. It is my personal rule, and it comes from my belief that the most important stories of the game are where the camera is not. When I met that thirty-one-year-old captain, he told me he would put his name in the auction again next season because he hopes one day a team will recognise his hard work. There was no bitterness in his voice, only a quiet resolve. That resolve reminds me of the players who return to the field after defeat. Now I come to the thing that troubles me most. After the auction we all talk about the players who sold, their prices, their contracts. But we do not talk about the players who did not sell. And when we do not talk about them, we also do not see what happens to them. Do they come back next season? What happens to their families? What effect does it have on their domestic careers? These questions get buried under the shadow of the auction's big sums. I remember after the auction that year I watched a domestic match in which the same unsold player scored a century. There were very few spectators, but when he completed the century, his teammates celebrated as if a World Cup had been won. That day I wrote in my notebook: some victories have no scorecard, only witnesses. And that day I was one of those witnesses. I add this because the discussion of auction numbers often forgets that players are not just assets. They are people with homes, families, and dreams. When we write about their price, we should also write about their story. This is the core of my writing, and it comes from my belief that the greatest strength of sport is not in its numbers but in its people. Now look at another aspect that is often missed in auction reporting. On auction day, many of the players whose names we hear have worked for years in domestic cricket. But when we write their success stories, we forget the days they spent on empty grounds. For me, that is the most important story, because it shows that a player is not made on auction day alone; he is made by years of hard work. I also know that auction money changes the lives of many players. A big contract can change a player's family's financial situation forever. But my question is: does this money also reach the players who did not sell? Is there a safety net for them? Is there a system to manage their domestic careers? I do not think there is any big plan for these questions. And this is where my biggest concern begins. The auction is a fair that is set up every year, grows bigger every year, and makes more noise every year. But the domestic cricket these players come from gets emptier every year. In recent years I have been to many domestic matches and seen that spectator numbers are falling, sponsors are shrinking, and media attention is decreasing. This is the emptiness I want to write about. I remember a journalist once asked me why I write so much about the auction when the real cricket happens on the field. My answer was that the auction is also part of the field, because the future of the players who play on the field is decided in the auction room. And if we do not understand that room, we will not understand the field either. Now I come to the turn where I have to be most careful. When I write about a young player, the fifty-year-old journalist inside me starts seeing his twenty-year-old self in him. This is a danger, because I can put a burden on that player he never wanted to carry. That is why when I was writing about Umran Malik, I did not ask him how big a player he would become. I asked him what he eats in the morning, what his grandmother says to him, and how he feels his own pace. Because I feel the answers are not in the questions we ask, but in the questions we forget to ask. This was a lesson for me. When I am in a hurry to make a player a superstar, I stop myself and remember that he is also a human being with his own fears, hopes, and mornings. That is why I do not make a player a god in my articles, and I do not call any team "we." I write only what I have seen, and what I have seen I write in my notebook. Now let us come to the thing that worries me most. After the auction we all talk about the players who sold, but we do not see what happens to those who did not. Over the past few years I have spoken to many unsold players, and several told me the weeks after the auction are the hardest weeks of their lives. They have to explain to their families that they are still good players, even if no team chose them. This is the human side I want to bring into my articles. Auction numbers are important, but the people behind those numbers are even more important. And if we do not see those people, we will not see the soul of the game. I also know that auction money is a blessing for many players, but it is also true that this money does not reach the players who sustain the basic infrastructure of domestic cricket from which these stars are made. The ground staff who work on Ranji grounds, the coaches who wake at four in the morning to train children, the shopkeepers who have sat outside their ground for thirty years, never think about this money. But if they were not there, the players sold at the auction would not be there either. This is the difference I want to convey to my readers. I want to bridge the distance between the auction's glare and domestic cricket's dust, so readers can understand that the stars they see on TV are the produce of some empty ground. Now I want to take my point to the turn where the road ahead is visible. The auction is a spectacle, and spectacles will always exist. But my question is: after that spectacle, will we remember the players who did not sell? Will we remember the domestic grounds these players come from? Will we remember the shopkeepers and ground staff who keep this game alive? This question matters to me because I have seen many auctions in my career, and after every auction some players sell and some do not. But I have also seen that players who do not sell come back the next year, and sometimes they do sell. This hope is the greatest strength of this game. One more thing. When I returned to Dharamsala last year, I took out my old notebook. The dampness of the rain was still in it, and the words on that page were still clear: "Five a.m., ground staff clearing hail, the Dhauladhar line, and a match that had not yet begun." I turned the page and wrote on the back: "The silence after an auction is as deep as the silence after rain." This is the essence of my writing, and it comes from my belief that the most important stories of the game are where the camera is not. Now I take my point to the final turn where the road ahead is visible. After every auction we make a new list, add new numbers, choose new heroes. But my question is: will we also add the names that did not sell? Will we also remember the players who sat at home on auction day and did not watch TV? Will we also listen to the grandmothers' questions waiting for their grandsons' newspaper? For me, this is the real cricket, and this is what I want to write.