Why is this the case? There are multiple reasons but the most common answer is that the ‘companies that provide data analysts are headquartered in Chennai’, both within a 10km radius (SportsMechanics and Kadamba). In a way, this is what’s happening to the IPL teams. Because some teams still do not have separate data wings, what they essentially do is hire employees of these two companies for a fixed period every season. This year alone, there are at least seven Tamil-speaking analysts in IPL.

Big team players

Even the Indian men’s cricket team have on their roster somebody who is associated with Chennai-based company Sports Mechanics (Hari Mohan, who hails from Coimbatore). Seshadrinathan was at StatDNA, Arsenal’s analytics company when Arsene Wenger was the manager.