I’ve been running this newsletter alone for a couple of years, and it’s gone through it’s fair share of ups and downs. From a fax-looking PDF that I shared with 20-odd people, it’s become an actual publication that people look forward to reading every morning.
It still blows my mind when I send out the roundups everyday. People actually want to read it consistently. I keep waiting for the number to drop back down to zero, but it seems to keep climbing.
With that in mind, it seemed irresponsible to sit on this burgeoning support and do nothing about it. As you might have noticed, we’ve tried putting out new kinds of stories recently, and we’ve covered 4 major tournaments in the last 6 months – but it’s not sustainable with my current method of doing everything myself.
Firstly, I’m going to get burned out and the quality is going to drop (it might have already done so a bit towards the backend of the IPL honestly). Secondly, there are better writers and editors out there, and it seemed a waste not to use my platform to help them grow their voice.
Which brings me to the point of this piece – Best of Cricket are lucky enough to bring Sarthak Dev on board to help out with our editorial duties. He first wrote for us during last year’s Women’s ODI World Cup (which India won), and he’s joining us in time for this year T20 World Cup (you know who to thank if India win again!).
Sarthak runs his own successful sports Substack called Lines on the Grass, and has been published across multiple major Indian outlets like Indian Express, Newslaundry, & Scroll. Before that, he worked as software engineer for a decade, and spends his free time composing on the piano. In short, he’s a man who’s as comfortable digging through the stats as he is quoting Tagore or making a piece sing like Mozart.
But, none of that is why I’m excited to bring him on board to help Best of Cricket. When we met to talk about the prospect of working together, Sarthak made it clear what appealed to him; the chance to work with writers, to mentor the aspiring journalists that need just a little help, and to give the experienced reporters a place to express themselves in a dwindling cricket media landscape.
Sarthak’s starting off with the most obvious topic: the Women’s T20 World Cup. However, he will also be looking at publishing long form features and original reporting on the heaps of cricket that will be played this summer, and is looking for the right partners to take Best of Cricket to the next level.
If you’re interested, you can reach out to him at sarthakdev90@gmail.com.
Personally, I can’t wait to see what he pulls off!