Interview With Nikhil Kulkarni, Author of My Summer of Cricket

An engaging conversation with Nikhil Kulkarni on cricket fandom, memory, the IPL, Test cricket, and why the game continues to connect people across generations.
on Jun 16, 2026

Frontlist: Cricket used to be scarce - one series, months of wait, pure magic. Now there's a match every other day. Has abundance killed the romance?

Nikhil: I would say the abundance has changed the romance rather than killed it. Growing up, cricket was rationed. You waited months for a series and every ball felt precious. Most series weren't even available on television, and even when they were, it was a luxury to catch them live. You relied on newspapers and radio to fill in the gaps. That scarcity created a particular kind of reverence.

What abundance has done is raise the bar for what counts as unmissable. Great cricket still clears that bar easily. And if anything, abundance has given fans something previous generations never had: the option to find the type of cricket they love most and follow it on their own terms.

Frontlist: You've followed cricket for three decades, rearranged your life to attend every day of a Test series, and written an entire book about it. So you've clearly earned the right to define this - what actually makes someone a true fan? Is it sacrifice, memory, suffering, or something else entirely?

Nikhil: Honestly, everyone is a true fan in their own way. It's not really about the sacrifice or the hardship. For me it's simple: a true fan carries the game with them. You can fly across the world to catch a few hours of play, or you can be at home with some chips and a cold drink, just soaking it in. You can passionately recite statistics or get nostalgic about that one memorable experience you had years ago. Each of those is as real as the other. The commitment looks different for everyone. But it's the passion that connects all of them together.

Frontlist: Your book has a photo with Sudhir Chaudhary - the man who has painted himself in the tricolour and followed Team India across the world for decades, entirely on his own means. Do you think India can produce more fans like him - or is Sudhir ji a once-in-a-generation phenomenon that no amount of cricket's growth can replicate?

Nikhil: Sudhir ji is a legend, plain and simple. The commitment to travel with the team across the world, entirely on his own means, and to do it with that kind of infectious joy, it's a remarkable expression of what cricket can inspire in people. I was lucky enough to be next to him at the Gabba, and the atmosphere around him is something else. Positive, festive, completely joyous. It lifts everyone around him.

Is he once in a generation? In his specific way of celebrating, yes. But I think fandom finds its own extraordinary expressions in every generation. There will be fans who show their love for the game in ways we haven't seen yet. Sudhir ji just sets a very high and very colourful bar.

Frontlist: Indian fans have a fascinating and slightly terrifying history - showering players with gold and gifts when they win, and literally throwing stones at their houses when they lose. As someone who defines what true fandom means - do you think we've genuinely evolved as fans, or have we just moved the stone-throwing to Twitter?

Nikhil: Success and stardom as an Indian cricketer is a huge double-edged sword. The passion fans have comes out as enormous love, gifts and praise when the team wins. And then that same passion, when things go wrong, can take unfortunate forms. That expression has remained pretty consistent over the years, whether it plays out in real life or online.

What social media has done is amplify and accelerate it in ways that are genuinely concerning. Things spread and escalate quickly, and what makes it worse is that players' family members are also on these platforms and experience it directly. That, in my view, is quite unfortunate.

As a true fan, I think it's important to be honest about these uncomfortable realities. I really hope there is more awareness among fans, and that cricket boards, franchises and player associations put sufficient measures in place to protect players from unsavoury behaviour online.

Frontlist: Memory is tricky - especially with cricket, where emotion colours everything. When you sat down to write, did the memories come out exactly as they were, or did you realise that 30 years of fandom had quietly mythologised certain moments in your head? And what was the one memory that surprised you most when you finally put it on paper?

Nikhil: Interestingly, the memories came out sharper than I expected. I could recall very specific details, almost visual and graphic in their clarity. The emotions coloured them, yes, but they didn't distort them. If anything, the emotion is what kept them so vivid.

The memory that surprised me most was my connection to Cheteshwar Pujara. I had followed him since he was scoring runs by the ton, pun intended, for Saurashtra in the Ranji Trophy. At one point my new year wish was simply for him to get into the Indian team. I then happened to attend his debut Test in Bengaluru, where he played a key role in India's win against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. And then, almost poetically, he announced his retirement from international cricket right as my book was going to print. I literally had to stop the press to add a mention of it in the postscript. That full arc, from a Ranji hopeful to a retirement tribute, and the fact that it bookended my own journey with this book, was something I could never have planned.

Frontlist: The Border-Gavaskar Trophy drew record crowds. Is that proof that great cricket still cuts through the noise - or was it just two giant fanbases colliding?

Nikhil: It is both actually, and I don't think that's a contradiction. Yes, it is two giant fanbases colliding, and that energy is real and significant. But it is also, by pure cricketing standards, the two most competitive teams in the world playing high quality cricket at the highest level right now. The 2024-25 series gave us a nineteen-year-old Sam Konstas taking on Jasprit Bumrah on Boxing Day, Jaiswal batting like he was in a different zone and there was drama in almost every session. People didn't just show up because they were Indian or Australian. They showed up because the BGT has earned the right to be watched. Great fanbases and great cricket aren't in competition and when they come together, you get what we saw during the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Frontlist: IPL has made cricketers global celebrities before they've even played a Test. Good for the game or a shortcut that cheapens the journey?

Nikhil: My first reaction to the IPL was roughly "what kind of circus is this?" The purist in me resisted it completely. But over the years the unbridled cricket fan in me won out, and I would actually stick my neck out and say the IPL has been a wonderful thing for young cricketers.

We only need to look at IPL 2026 and what it has done for Vaibhav Suryavanshi. Every single person in the cricket world is talking about him. There is no other platform where a fifteen-year-old can become the talk of the town quite like that. And beyond the fame, the cricketing exposure is immense. The level of opposition, the dressing room time with world-class players, the coaches, the pressure of performing on the biggest stage. Yes, cricketers have to keep a level head as the success and fame arrive early. But purely from a cricketing perspective, I would call it a very welcome shortcut.

Frontlist: One format has to go. Which one survives - and which one deserves to die?

Nikhil: If one has to go, I am afraid it is ODI cricket. Test cricket has been around long enough to have earned its place as the purest form of the game, and it is not going anywhere. T20 is what the next generation is gravitating towards. ODIs sit awkwardly in between, too long for those who want instant gratification and too short for those who want the full five-day narrative. There are still great ODI moments, but the format is increasingly finding it hard to justify its place in an already crowded cricketing calendar. Over time, I think it will become harder and harder for ODI cricket to find its due place in the scheme of things.