Behind the Empty Spreadsheet: The Invisible Data Workers of Bangladesh Cricket

On the morning of February 11, at half past nine, I walked into the scorers' room on the ground floor of the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium. February in Chattogram means dew-soaked grass and a thin fog. Beside the outfield stood Hasaan Ali, a groundsman, broom in hand; he told me he had started at six in the morning because there was a practice match in the afternoon. Inside the room sat a man in his sixties, Nurul Amin, in front of an old laptop. On the screen was a spreadsheet with eight columns, and one of them was completely blank. "What happens if this cell stays empty?" I asked. "Then it is as if that match was never played," he said. "The scorecard will survive, the runs will survive, the wickets will survive. But who absorbed how much pressure in which over, who played how many dot balls, who stepped out of the crease and when — all of that disappears. Later, when someone sits down to analyse, they will fill the gap with guesswork. And analysis built on guesswork is cricket's biggest lie." An empty cell. Across more than two decades of writing about cricket, I have seen again and again that these empty cells hide our greatest truths. The data nobody records, the person behind that data nobody remembers. Today's piece is about the people behind those empty cells — in a trophy season, when everyone is staring at the scoreboard. Context: In a Trophy Season, Where Do We Look? The 2026 ICC Men's T20 World Cup is scheduled to run from February 7 to March 8 in India and Sri Lanka — a twenty-team event, the largest T20 tournament in the game's history. Bangladesh's preparation is at its final stage; a conditioning camp in Chattogram, skill sessions in Dhaka, and a warm-up series in between. One phrase keeps reaching me this season — "data sorts everything out now." Selectors, coaching staff, even social-media readers say that with the right numbers, decisions become simple. That is half-true. Numbers open a door, but the person standing on the other side of that door still has to be recognised. Last January I ran a twenty-four-hour Facebook poll among my readers. The question was: what is Bangladesh's biggest weakness in the World Cup? Of 3,400 votes, 58 per cent said "the run rate in the middle overs," 23 per cent said "death bowling," and 11 per cent said "decision-making." The remaining 8 per cent wrote, "let the team play before you say anything." I held on to that last 8 per cent. My rule is simple — I do not file any tactical analysis until a reader poll has run a full twenty-four hours. But this time the poll pushed me somewhere new. When 58 per cent say "the middle-overs run rate," the question becomes: who calculates that run rate? Who records which batter absorbed how much pressure in which over? Nobody could answer. That is where this journey begins. Trading the desk for the touchline taught me that the real report begins exactly where nobody looks. Core: The People Buried Beneath the Scoreboard One. Nurul Amin and the First Hand of Data Nurul Amin has been scoring in Chattogram since 2026. Chittagong Abahani, Mohammedan, Victoria — he has seen every club's matches. "I used to write in a notebook, counting ball by ball with coloured pens," he said. "Now it is software, a tablet. But the problem is the same — ball-by-ball data comes from a fielder. If the fielder does not send it on time, I have nothing in my hands." I never forget this. Our entire analytical pyramid rests on the handwriting of one scorer. Without ball-by-ball data, there is no way to calculate the middle-overs run rate. Yet nobody knows that scorer's name; if he errs, he is trolled; if he is right, the analyst takes the credit. Nurul Amin told me a story. In a domestic match in 2026, one ball of one over slipped out of his record — the software had crashed. The scorecard later showed the bowler had bowled one ball short. "Someone caught it eventually," he said, "but how long the error had spread, nobody said." Two. The Analyst's Desk: Decisions Behind the Numbers Another Chattogram name — Tanvir Hasan. In his early thirties, he studied electrical engineering, and has worked with cricket data for eight years. Two monitors sit on his desk, one showing video, the other a spreadsheet. "We tag every ball for the batter — line, length, shot, runs," he said. "But the real work is not in the tags; it is in the pattern." He gave an example. In a series last year, Bangladesh's batters were doing well in the powerplay, but the scoring rate collapsed between overs seven and fourteen. The poll's 58 per cent had put a finger on exactly this spot. "In the middle overs we were scoring about 6.75 an over, where good international T20 sides now score seven to 7.5," Tanvir said. "The difference looks small, but across twenty overs it stacks into ten to fifteen runs." Here one thing becomes clear. The number is known; the reason behind the number is not. "It turned out our batters were playing too many dots against spin in the middle overs because they could not rotate strike," Tanvir said. "That is a technique problem, not a courage problem." He offered another data point. In a bilateral series in 2026, Bangladesh scored in the high nines per over in the death overs (16-20), but lost almost a wicket an over. "So we were scoring but not surviving. The decision was wrong — who attacks when, that order was wrong." That error never shows on the scoreboard; it only shows if you read ball-by-ball data. Three. The Physio, the Workload and the Silent Ledger A physio attached to the national side, Dr Shahriar Rahman, has worked at the Chattogram camp for eight years. On his desk is a ledger where each pacer's ball count is written every day. "You will see overs on the scorecard," he said, "but for me the real number is balls bowled and the hours of rest between sessions." He gave me a fact — in one preparatory series, a pacer bowled 34 overs across four straight days, including two back-to-back matches. "On TV, someone will say the boy is in form. In my ledger I see a strain forming in his left calf. Two weeks later he was injured. Everyone said it was sudden. In my ledger it was never sudden." This is where data and people meet. The scoreboard says "three wickets"; the ledger says "left calf, four days, 34 overs." The first wins trophies; the second saves careers. Four. The People Below the Ground Groundsman Hasaan Ali has worked at this stadium for fourteen years. "We understand how a pitch will behave before anyone, because we touch the grass every day," he said. "But nobody asks us." Curator Abdul Karim is another. "Which pitch will turn, which will be easy for batting — we know. But before the match the report goes upstairs; our names do not." Steward Rafiqul Islam stands in the stands. In 2026, when the stadium was empty, he said, "I have never seen a ground this silent in my life." In the quiet stadium, silence became the loudest part of the game. I covered fourteen matches then — zero spectators, three hundred staff. The ambient audio caught wicketkeeper Sohel Mia's chatter, bat on turf, and one groundsman's hollow clap. Five. Women's Cricket: The Biggest Empty Cell Bangladesh's women's team now plays regularly on the international stage, but ball-by-ball data from their matches remains incomplete. I once attended a domestic women's match — one scorer, no video camera. Ball-by-ball logs were being kept by hand, at a table. The batter's strike rate was never calculated. After the match I asked her, what was your strike rate today? She laughed and said, "I don't know, you tell me." That not-knowing is the greatest loss in women's cricket. The player whose data does not exist never enters any comparison, never wins a place in the side. I did a calculation. Of the domestic matches whose ball-by-ball data is preserved each year in the men's game, the women's game records less than half. Nobody counts this gap, because when the data is missing, there is no way even to feel the absence. Six. From Age-Group to National Team: A Lost Path Data collection in Under-19 and Under-16 matches is still irregular. At one Under-16 match I watched a left-arm spinner take two wickets for two runs in six overs. But his ball speed, his revolutions — nothing was recorded. Two years later he was not called up to the national side, because beside his name the selectors had no number. This is the biggest empty cell of all. We only see the players whose data exists. Those whose data does not exist are invisible. I watch the training ground first, because that is where the truth warms up — and that is where the most names are lost. Seven. The Market, Money and Cricket's Economy The Bangladesh Premier League, the Dhaka Premier Division, the Chattogram league — there is money behind all of them, and that accounting also needs data. Why does a franchise owner pick a player? Because his numbers look good. But the gap between whose numbers look good and whose numbers are actually good requires an eye, not a spreadsheet. In a domestic tournament last year, one player scored at a strike rate of 120, but sixty per cent of those runs came against small grounds and weak bowling. The number is shiny. Another scored at 105, but every innings came in difficult conditions. The number is dull. A team that only reads numbers takes the first. A team that can read data takes the second. Eight. The Tactical Question: Bangladesh's T20 Model Bangladesh's T20 cricket is still searching for an identity. Winning through intelligence rather than force is a natural model for us. But the problem is that the model built purely on athleticism gets solved quickly in cricket. Mid-table sides have figured out who is weak where; instead of meeting force with force, they simply attack the gap in intelligence. Our T20 batting can therefore lean on strike rotation, on the overs after the powerplay, and on footwork against spin. This is the place where data and eye are both needed. Data alone says "strike rate is low"; the eye says "because of footwork, because of strike rotation." If the two do not meet, the decision goes wrong. At a training session I watched a coach make a batter do one drill — how far to step before the spinner releases, and how fast to get back after. The drill never shows up in numbers. But six months later, that batter's middle-overs strike rate had risen by about twelve. Data recorded the change, because someone had created the change. Nine. Data and the Media: Who Writes, Who Reads Our media has a habit — lifting the numbers off the scoreboard but never touching the person behind them. I have been a victim of this habit myself. In 2026 I wrote reports from the desk, using scorecard numbers. Then I went to the ground and saw that the scorecard and the truth of the ground are two different things. That year I was present at 46 of Chittagong Abahani's 52 pre-season sessions. Under the banner "Notebook from the Touchline" I filmed six-minute Facebook Lives. In August, a clip of nineteen-year-old left winger Nayeem Uddin beating three defenders in a rondo drew 240,000 views. The supporters' page Port City Blues shared it 1,100 times in 48 hours. The number taught me then: if the truth of the ground is delivered well, people read it. Since then I have had one rule — every report closes with a 200-word section called "What the Stands Are Saying," built entirely from reader comments and fan-page replies. Someone writes the data, someone reads it — if there is no human between the two, the data dies. Ten. A Training-Ground Morning: Nayeem, Rafi and the Young Boys When I enter the ground in Chattogram, it is seven in the morning. The dew has not yet dried. Some are lapping, some stretching. Beside them a group of Under-17 boys practise in a small net. I watched one boy play, named Rafi. Left-arm, short in stature, but with remarkable hand speed. The coach told him, "Nobody measures your spin, so nobody will recognise you." It sounded like a joke, but it is a real problem. Rafi's revolutions, his drift, his dip — none of it is recorded, because nobody is scoring this match. The day he grows, everyone will say he "arrived suddenly." In truth he had been there for a long time, invisible only for want of data. These ground mornings have taught me the most. What the scoreboard shows is the end result. What the ground shows is the whole process. And the process is my real beat. Eleven. The Scorer's War: Data and Trust Nurul Amin told me something I keep turning over. "When I score a match, I know those numbers will be used later," he said. "A selector will use them, a coach will use them, a journalist will use them. But my name will not be anywhere." This is the data worker's greatest war — trust. He knows the fruit of his labour will spread without his name. Yet he records every ball, catches every missing ball, corrects every error. Because he knows that without data, the game is incomplete. I once saw this war with my own eyes. In a domestic final the power went out. The match stopped for two hours. Coming back, the scorer looked at his notes from the previous over and said, "I have forgotten which ball who faced." He asked the fielders one by one, watched the video, and wrote again. The numbers ended up right. Nobody knew what had happened in those two hours. Twelve. One Evening, One Poll Back to the poll. After it closed I spoke with three readers. One said, "We say death bowling is weak, but where do I see who is bowling how many balls?" Another said, "The middle-overs run rate — who builds that number, I don't know." The third was the most honest: "We only look at runs and wickets, and we don't try to understand anything else." Those three answers taught me that a poll is never the final truth; a poll is only a beginning. What a reader does not know is not his weakness; it is the journalist's job. Showing what nobody has seen — nobody is doing that now, because recognising the person behind the number is hard work. The Contrarian Angle: When Data Wears the Mask of False Neutrality In a World Cup season everyone says, "numbers do not lie." I do not believe it. Numbers say nothing on their own — someone makes them speak. If the hand of the scorer who records ball by ball trembles, the number is wrong. If the eye of the analyst who tags is biased, the number is wrong. If the mind of the selector reading the number has already decided, the number becomes only a witness to that decision. I remember the 23 per cent of readers who called death bowling the weakness. Behind that number is a human being — who stays up at night bowling, whose left calf strains, whose workload nobody records. If data does not see that person, data sees only the picture on top, not the human underneath. There is another thing I must say. "The middle-overs run rate is low" — that is true in numbers, but the reason is not always technique. Sometimes the reason is team strategy — someone wants to drag an innings to the final over. Then the low run rate is not weakness but plan. An analyst who reads only numbers will scream that the plan is weakness, and the team will go on to win the trophy. I live in Chattogram, and from here I see that our biggest weakness is not the absence of numbers but the absence of the people behind them. A club that does not know its fourteen-year groundsman, a side that does not record the revolutions of an Under-16 spinner, may win a trophy, but it cannot build cricket. Takeaway: Whose Morning Comes Next? When the World Cup begins on February 7, everyone will watch the scoreboard. I will watch the ground-floor room — the scorer, the physio, the groundsman, the steward. The scoreboard will say who won. But who paid what price, who waited how many days, who was lost — nobody will say it, unless we write it. One question for my readers. When you open the scorecard of the next match, will you pause once to ask — who wrote these numbers, and who never got to write them?