Analysis

Dream11: How hard should we work to play cricket for India?

VM

26 Oct 2021 — 3 min read

The TV ads for the fantasy cricket app Dream11 seem objectionable, to my mind. Thus far, I've seen three high-profile players of the Indian men's cricket team in these ads: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Jasprit Bumrah (there may be others). Each player stars in a version of the ad in which the ad summarily chronicles their childhood pursuits of becoming a professional cricketer. Dhawan's and Sharma's ads both extol lots of hard work and commitment to the demands of the sport, as does Bumrah's ad but I think to a lesser extent.

Everyone who knows me knows that my intellectual coordinates are defined by scientific ideas, even when they’re about sociology or the humanities. This is why I found a new book, Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes, edited by anthropologists Renny Thomas and Sasanka Perera, so compelling. The book

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Dream11: How hard should we work to play cricket for India?

VM

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Review: ‘Decolonial Keywords’ (2026)

Would a quantum battery charge faster than a classical one?

Epstein or otherwise, Silicon Valley’s techno-elite know what they’re doing

A laser worthy of a nuclear clock