A particular chapter from Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution has been making the rounds on social media since 31 May — the day Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) became only the fourth franchise in Indian Premier League (IPL) history to win multiple titles.
Titled Why CSK Win and RCB Lose, the chapter may appear almost prophetic in hindsight. Yet when Freddie Wilde and Tim Wigmore were writing the book, the premise was both relevant and justified. MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings were already three-time champions when his book was being written, whilst Virat Kohli’s RCB had not won a single title.
Much has changed since then. Over the last two seasons, CSK have endured a dramatic decline, finishing 10th and 8th respectively, while RCB have completed a remarkable turnaround, clinching back-to-back IPL titles.
In Cricket 2.0, Wilde argued that RCB's persistent failures stemmed from the absence of a coherent long-term strategy and an overreliance on marquee signings, in contrast to the data-driven, analytical approach adopted by the league's most successful franchises. Today, the irony is hard to miss. As the former Head of Performance Analysis at CricViz — cricket's leading analytics company — Wilde has been one of the key architects of the very transformation that has reshaped RCB's fortunes.
Days after RCB's second IPL triumph, Wilde sat down with The Quint's Shuvaditya Bose for a wide-ranging conversation on the franchise's evolution, the growing influence of data in cricket, the role of CricViz, and, of course, the enduring phenomenon that is Virat Kohli.
Here are the excerpts:
You once co-authored Cricket 2.0, where one of the most discussed themes was why franchises like RCB consistently underperformed despite enormous star power. Years later, you became part of the very ecosystem trying to solve that problem. How surreal has that journey been personally and professionally?
It has been a surreal journey to have written that chapter quite a long time ago. Now, having contributed towards two titles, looking back feels weird. Both this year and last year, I got a little bit of traction online when it happened, which made me look back on it. I actually glanced through the book yesterday to review what we'd said.
It’s satisfying to point out structural issues with how the side was built and feel like you could remedy them. Looking back, a lot of our points still stand true: focusing on a domestic core, winning at home, balancing quality through your XI, having a good bowling attack, and being tactically smart and flexible. Nowadays with RCB, we've managed to bring a lot of those things to life.
So it’s surreal, but very satisfying, to see that we have heeded some of the key lessons from that book.
For years, RCB carried the reputation of being a side built around superstardom and spectacle rather than balance and role clarity. What were the first structural or cultural shifts you and the management identified as non-negotiable?
The first shift probably came before Mo Bopat and Andy Flower arrived, under Mike Hesson. There were quite a lot of important decisions made during Hesson's tenure that started to shift the needle, though it didn't go far enough. We had big ideas about what was going to happen when we built our squads under Hess, but we didn't ever quite bring them to life. The first obvious shift under Mike Hesson at the 2022 Mega Auction was moving away from batting spend to bowling spend. If you look back, we bought Hazlewood, retained Siraj, bought Hasaranga, and bought Harshal Patel—all for big money, more than 10 crore. However, the fifth bowler remained a weakness, which was an example of us not going far enough. We ended up with Akash Deep and Siddharth Kaul and rotated between them, but we spent almost nothing on them.
We didn't quite complete that side of it, but shifting towards bowling over batting was the first change I remember. Since then, under Andy and Mo, a lot more things have shifted. From an auction perspective, the spend on Indian players, the distribution of money through the XI, and an emphasis on one or two all-rounders have also been really key
How do you translate highly technical insights into language elite athletes can instinctively trust? That is, how do you avoid overwhelming them cognitively before a high-pressure game?
I’d like to say as modestly as I can, one of my strengths as an analyst is the ability to convey complicated, detailed work into a simple slide, a singular graphic, or a clear sentence.
It sometimes feels strange that hours or days of work end up distilled into the tiniest sound bites, but that is definitely part of the job for two reasons. First, simple messages land better. Second, players are not familiar with the technical jargon associated with analytics, and I would never want to jeopardize my ability to make a difference by using convoluted messaging.
A huge part of the job for a modern-day analyst is realizing that increasingly detailed work behind the scenes doesn't mean the message conveyed needs to be detailed. You can have confidence in your work while doing whatever it takes to ensure the messaging is understood and makes a difference to the team.
You’ve spoken about how Virat Kohli often relied on instinct, yet his instinct frequently aligned with the data. Could you elaborate on this statement?
Virat is a very instinctive player, but he also watches more cricket than he probably cares to admit. He is extremely plugged in to what's going on and has an exceptional understanding of the game through his own experience. If we get on the bus back from training, he’s often immediately pulling the game up on his phone.
The combination of that innate understanding and the fact that he absorbs as much of the game as he can all goes into his own brain. Often, he notices things that later show up in the data. For example, this season there were specific spin bowlers who drift the ball in the opposite direction to what you might expect. That’s something I can flag using ball-tracking data, but he picks it up naturally and shares it in the meeting.
This makes our meetings quite powerful. You have me presenting organized visual information and insight, and then someone like Virat contributing and endorsing or adding to those points. I've talked elsewhere about how RCB is data-informed, not data-driven. We pride ourselves on combining data and human instinct, and the combination of me providing information and Virat providing his personal experience is really powerful.
CricViz’s “Standard of Cricket” framework is fascinating because it attempts to normalize performances across vastly different leagues. Conceptually, how difficult is it to compare a player dominating a lower-tier competition versus someone succeeding in the IPL?
One of the biggest challenges for an analyst these days is understanding how performances in different tournaments translate across leagues. There's more cricket played than ever before, which gives us more information, but how much should we pay attention to a 70 off 45 balls in the Lanka Premier League when considering an IPL signing?
It's a difficult question to answer, but CricViz's Standard of Cricket framework is an attempt to do that. Having the ability to say, "This performance is worth X in the IPL," or "These skills are translatable," is hugely valuable. Otherwise, you would only ever sign players from the IPL or T20 Internationals.
The ability to look at leagues around the world and quantify exactly what a performance is worth to an IPL team is massive, because it suddenly expands the pool of players deemed suitable for IPL-level cricket.
Modern players seem to be extending their white-ball careers much longer than previous generations. How much credit belongs to analytics-driven self-awareness?
To be honest, I wouldn't say analytics is helping players play longer. I think it comes down to a few other things. Sports science and medicine mean players stay fitter, and the increased money means they're more willing to play for longer.
Thirty years ago, if you were 35 years old, would you slog it out on the county circuit for another couple of years? Probably not. But now, you can travel around the world and earn significant money doing that, so you're much more likely to.
Can you walk through examples of players in RCB who successfully reinvented themselves technically or tactically through data-informed interventions?
Rajat Patidar has been on the record saying some of the video footage I helped him with was really valuable in him becoming that renowned spin basher. It was largely last year, focusing on trying to read the likes of Varun Chakaravarthy, Sunil Narine and Rashid Khan.
He has always had a natural ability to take on spin, but there were some bowlers he wanted to try and understand how to read out of the hand better. I spent a bit of time pulling together super slow-motion footage and matching it up with ball-tracking data to understand what ball was what, and whether there were any visual cues to help him pick them up. So that's one example.
CricViz has also transformed the broadcast experience through predictive metrics and live analytical storytelling. How has that changed the relationship between fans and the game itself?
CricViz has transformed the broadcast experience. The way cricket coverage has evolved over the last 10 to 15 years is massive, and CricViz has played a huge part in that. By providing more advanced metrics, they are taking the viewer closer to the game itself.
For example, who is winning is an eternal question in cricket that is never easy to answer, but WinViz, CricViz's win probability model was probably the first example of that kind of tool being exposed on broadcast. Even slightly more basic, but still advanced stats like Catch Percentage or Successful Yorker Percentage previously wasn't seen on a broadcast.
CricViz's role in modern coverage is massive, and that's done both through graphics on screen and the presence of an analyst in the commentary box providing insight to the commentators.
DDP’s comeback story has resonated with fans. From inside the setup, how highly rated was he even during phases when the outside noise was critical?
Devdutt Padikkal is clearly a hugely talented, high-class player. He scored an IPL hundred for RCB over half a decade ago, has played Test cricket for India, and has one of the highest List A averages ever. He is a player of high class; there is no doubt his T20 game has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years.
Since joining RCB, he has made a number of changes to his batting that have elevated his game. He always had immense class and quality, but it was about unlocking it. Dev has spoken about the role Dinesh Karthik and Andy Flower played in opening his mind to the possibilities of what he can do in T20 cricket. He has a traditional technique, but when you fuse that with extra intent, positivity, and looking to score from the get-go, you get a completely different package, someone who can access all around the ground and take on both pace and spin.
He is a strong guy, but a lot of that comes from timing and fantastic hand-eye coordination. What we've seen is the realization of his potential through good coaching from Andy and DK, but most of the credit lies with Dev himself for shifting his mindset.
He has turned himself from a promising, decent T20 player into a truly elite IPL batter who will likely be pushing for India selection in the shortest format soon.
Even at the age of 36, Bhuvneshwar Kumar is arguably the most effective seamer in the IPL. Considering his vast experience, how open has he been to data insights aimed at tweaking his bowling?
Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been really open to data and insights. After the qualifier in Dharamshala, he spoke about how the preparation we've been doing this year has been hugely beneficial to him. He is clearly a bowler with great skill, huge experience, and a lot of instinctive smarts. But this year, I think he enjoyed the detailed, one-on-one sessions we did before games, where we talked specifically about certain field sets and tactics.
There were a number of dismissals, probably both in the qualifier and the final, that were the fruition of that work. You still have to go out there and execute it, which is the most important thing, but he was very open to listening to insights from myself and Omkar Salvi, the fast-bowling coach, which were gleaned from data and video. He put them into action brilliantly in those last couple of games. Gujarat Titans rely heavily on their top order. I don't think they had ever lost five wickets in the powerplay before, which is how many we took in that first qualifier.
It was also only the second time ever that Buttler, Sai Sudharsan, and Gill had all been dismissed inside the powerplay. Then, we took Gill and Sai out in the powerplay in the final as well. When you combine fantastic new-ball bowlers like Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Jacob Duffy, and Rasikh Salam, and their talent, quality, and experience, with thorough preparation and considered insight, you end up with a pretty good combination of weapons.
We took 35 wickets in the powerplay across the season, which equals the most ever in an IPL season alongside GT, Rabada and Rashid were outstanding for them. It's nice to know that data played a part in the success we had in that phase this season