Cricuru App: Sehwag, Sanjay Bangar only watch cricket outside their Cricuru app

Mumbai: Former Indian cricketers Virender Sehwag and Sanjay Bangar turned entrepreneurs with video and artificial intelligence-based cricket coaching app Cricuru, which is a company. In an ET interview, Sehwag and Bangar talked for a long time about how they managed to put together 100 hours of content and how Sehwag rediscovered all the muscles in his body during the process.

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How did you come up with an idea for this platform?

Sanjay Bangar: Viru began to think about it in 2002-2003. I started thinking about this a lot from 2014 when I got into coaching.

It is not possible for all those who have a dream to play for the country and who have left distant and backward areas to learn the game. Personally, I had to move to Bombay in 1988 to get a better cricket infrastructure and to develop my game. But it is not possible for everyone who wants to make progress in the field of cricket. And that’s when I felt the gap had to be filled. Today, as technology advances, with everyone having smartphones, it is possible to deliver such content even in rural areas where people can watch and learn.

Did you get inspiration from other apps?

Sanjay Bangar: In the United States, MasterClass is huge. If Serena Williams is in MasterClass, that’s a big deal. And people are proud of it. And that’s why we felt that even in India, why can’t we show the way the masters do it? And then why is it limited to a certain number of people only when it can be democratized?

We’ve shot a lot of players in Hindi and only for players who don’t know Hindi, we’ve shot in English. But in the future, we also want to get this translation option ready for subscribers so that it is available to everyone anywhere.

How did you manage to assemble it during the pandemic?

Sanjay Bangar: We had discussed the idea once during dinner, but then nothing happened for a while. Then in July or August (2020), during the closing season, we now thought we could try and move on.

Much of the content was shot in Mumbai for various reasons as lock restrictions were eased. Some were shot at Sehwag School in Delhi. Some people who were unable to travel due to Covid-19 restrictions, such as AB de Villiers or Muttiah Muralithara, we hired them a local crew and saved them in Zoom.

There were a lot of challenges, but ultimately, as we do today, we are very happy with the quality and quantity of the content. Because getting 6,000 minutes of content from so many different players giving their own perspectives has been a lesson not only for us but also for everyone involved in Cricuru.

Share some anecdotes or difficulties you encountered during the compilation?

Virender Sehwag: Sanjay took care of the skills and I took care of the mental perspective. On the spiritual side, it was difficult at first. For example, when asked about their approach to the game, they just said, “My approach was simple.” It’s not even five seconds. So we had to explain to them and break up the questions.

From my point of view, it was not difficult. Sanjay did a lot of work. He had to spend eight hours in the sun filming the content. I sat in the AC room and asked questions (laughs).

Sanjay Bangar: For some players who are not active, they found it difficult to shoot all the skills. The players limped off the field. Just push Harbhajan Singh to get it all done, get Virender Sehwag to hit … When Sehwag’s module was shot, he could have played 1000 balls on a certain day. And finally how he suddenly found out about the different muscles in his body, how stiff they were the next morning, they were the funniest parts (laughs).

And then this incident happened on the first day of filming. We were not quite sure about the position of the camera. I asked the photographer to shoot just 10 meters from the bowler’s spot. And it was Pragyan Ojhan bowling and the ball landed directly on the forehead of the camera and he fell. It was scary. But then he got up and we saw the fun side of it and then we found out that there are corners that don’t work.

So did you become leaders for this too?

Sanjay Bangar: And also reporters! When we shot with a 33-34 mentor, we thought the job was done. But then all of a sudden we realized that we were now sitting on a mountain of content that was close to 10,000-11,000 hours. Then, getting the highlights of the skill videos was actually the hardest part.

What was the cost like?

Virender Sehwag: If you look at 33 players and give them two days of rewards, (that’s a lot). It was difficult for us to control this economic part. But many of the cricket players who joined the Cricuru app were my friends and they give us a very good discount. But if you want to develop this application, artificial intelligence, cricket fees, production fees and everything, it would easily cost 30 billion rubles. Our revenues depend only on subscribers, there is no other revenue stream.

What is the incentive for mentors?

Virender Sehwag: I talked to Brian Lara, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, DJ Bravo, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra – they just want to spread their knowledge. That is the first thing on their minds. They were very eager when they shot Sanjay or with me. This is also an order model and if you order them individually, they will get a lot of revenue from it.

What comes next for the app? Do you include other sports?

Virender Sehwag: There are a lot of cricketers who go to coaching. One Academy has 400 children and I have four to five academies, as in NCR. Not all of them can play at the state or Ranji award or internationally. But they can make a career in cricket by becoming a goal scorer, referee or video analyst. So we include these streams as well. Then they come to the Cricuru app and learn from the coach and then they can become the coach of cricket or any other sport.

Sanjay Bangar: We have just started the journey and want to cover all areas of cricket first, as that is our core competence. We don’t want to get into an industry where we don’t have in-depth knowledge. But once we have settled in, when we know that this chapter is over, with experience I am quite sure that we will be able to involve other experts and try to diversify into other areas as well.

Do you expect competition to increase?

We would definitely have a first-time advantage. And there are quite a few of our mentors that we currently have on our board with a total of nearly 15,000 international matches. I think they will become competition, but that is only for the benefit of the ecosystem.