7000 cricket videos and counting – How Cric_Archivist is every cricket fan’s best friend

For this socially awkward and introvert individual who had no friends, he had one constant companion. Cricket. For the billions of Indians and for this individual from Kandi, a town 200 kms north of Kolkata, cricket was a big escape from the monotony of daily life. At the start of the new millennium, Kandi was plagued by the normal rural shortfalls. There was no Cable TV, only a black and white TV set. He and his family could not afford a newspaper, so he had to go to a relative’s house and catch up on the sports news. Then, as time progressed, things changed in Kandi. The arrival of Cable TV in 2006 saw him loving the game even more. However, it was the gifting of a laptop by his father in 2014 that spurred a unique passion. He started recording cricket games and collected them in order to watch it on demand later. Next came the purchase of equipment which recorded from TV into DVD/Hard drives.

What started as a hobby has now become a virtual treasure trove for cricket fanatics. From 2014 till now, he has footages of 7000+ International games starting from the 1950s to 2020. Apart from this, he has a footage of almost every IPL game, various T20 leagues like the ICL, MSL, BPL, CPL and even footage from the T20 leagues of England and South Africa in the mid 2000s. The size of his giant archive is 50-70 Terabyte (TB).

This goldmine of data has gotten recognition from many people like Wasim Akram, Shaun Pollock, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Suresh Raina, Anil Kumble, Dinesh Karthik and a lot of others. In a country where archiving is not taken seriously, this individual has created a collection that is worth it’s wait in gold. Many know him as Desi Robelinda on Twitter. Now, he is @Cric_Archivist. His real name is Mainak Sinha

Sinha has 10.6K followers on Twitter and 102K subscribers on Youtube. It is the sheer passion and love for the game that Sinha has collected such a valuable collection. Recently, Sinha came into the news for his interaction with Shaun Pollock as the former South Africa pacer wanted footage from his own debut Test game. However, it was on June 18, 2020 that one video went absolutely viral. It was a collection of Rahul Dravid’s 27 spectacular catches and that footage was circulated widely across the web, with Harbhajan sharing it on his own Twitter handle, followed by many other cricketers

In this exclusive chat with DNA, Sinha opens up on his routine, how he balances his passion with preparation for the civil service examination, the difficulty in obtaining old footages, the sad story of not taking archiving seriously in the BCCI or Doordardshan and about the close friend, Rob Moody or Robelinda, considered the original archivist of cricket videos

Q.) What is your daily routine when it comes to the work of a cricket archivist?

It is tough to manage all these at times because I’m preparing for the civil services exams as well. In YouTube, one can post videos and monetize it but that can't be done in Twitter. So, I post a clip in Twitter out of my love for the game and it's a small attempt to share some glimpse of the past for the generation of fans who didn't get to see them live. How much time I spend on cricket varies but on an average I spend roughly 2-3 hours (sometimes little more) daily on cricket. This includes the quest to find new footage from various sources, organizing my own archive, doing research for contents, then editing the footage and finally posting on YouTube (I have a channel with 100k plus subs) or Twitter. As a thumb rule, I try and post one video every day on Twitter. Before placing a footage in my hard drive, every footage is properly checked, edited if need be (like if there is aspect ratio, frame rate etc issues), labelled & catalogued in a master excel sheet. Because when you have over 7000+ International games (I'm not even counting the non-Internationals) if you are not properly organized it will be very tough to find a particular game in the sea of data. All these are much time consuming.

Q.) In India, are broadcasting rules so tight that you cannot access rare footage?

Yes, in India you can’t purchase any sort of footage from boards or broadcasters. The rules are same in most of the other countries as well but there is some relaxation when it comes to old footage but certainly not in India. Like in Australia there was a time when Channel Nine sold old cricket footage albeit at a very high price. TVNZ and BBC did the same in New Zealand and England. I have purchased footage from SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) but they don’t ship DVDs outside South Africa, thankfully I had couple of friends in SA who helped.

Another problem is, BCCI is very bad in terms of archiving & it reflects on their social media game. When Cricket Australia is able to show footage of even domestic games from the 80s & 90s (forget Internationals) BCCI fails to even dig up footage from early 2000s except couple of same old marquee games like the 2001 Kolkata Test, Dhoni’s unbeaten 183 game at Jaipur etc.

The story is same with Doordarshan. They have taped over most stuff and just like most other government organizations they are very unprofessional. Sadly, nobody seems to care about preserving history in BCCI/Doordarshan. The likes of Cricket Australia, ECB constantly pulls out nostalgic clips & we can only lament by thinking if BCCI/DD preserved stuffs properly.

Q.) What is the toughest thing that you have faced as a cricket archivist?

There are two ways to look at it. Finding old footage is very tough in the first place especially I have found games played in New Zealand/Sri Lanka very tough to find. I haven’t found many people from those places who have similar interest unlike Australia, England & even Pakistan.  My statement will be proved if you try & search 80s and 90s games played in NZ and SL. There are plenty of series from which you won’t find anything.

Apart from that the red eye of copyright is the toughest thing I have faced. More so in YouTube lot less in Twitter. In YouTube most Australia/England hosted games, ICC events, IPL games, post 2000 Indian games is likely to be taken down by the respective authorities. I made a channel in YT back in 2012 which got terminated in 2015. After that I made my 2nd channel which is alive till date. It is very tough to survive without proper knowledge of what can be taken down. That knowledge comes with experience of course. I have seen so many good channels come and go. I have got few strikes here and there but managed to survive somehow so far.

Q.) RobeLinda (Rob Moody) has a massive collection of videos? Is he your inspiration?

I would say I don’t idolize him but I respect him a lot for his work & his YouTube channel gave me an idea to create mine. He recorded stuff during a time when technology wasn’t as good as it is today and he has done a fantastic job in this field. We got on touch with each other few years back and we have been mates ever since. We have exchanged lot footage with each other as well.

But one thing more I would say here. Rob mainly takes interest in Australian cricket and most of his uploads are Australia centric. He undoubtedly has the biggest archive in the world if you consider the amount of data but if you consider the number of International games/series I have much more than him. For me it is always about the quality rather than the quantity. Our interests are different like he doesn’t care about obscure Bangladesh/Zimbabwe related games & I don’t get much interested in ball by ball data or domestic games. There is no rivalry at all of course. We’re good mates but our content style is different, I try to be multi-dimensional by uploading footage from the 60s-70s to modern era and from games played in every corner of the world.

Q.) What are the key things required for being a cricket archivist?

The few basic things you need to have are passion, time & determination. This hobby requires relentless follow ups, bartering, negotiations and the ability to not to accept NO for an answer. To first identify a source then chase it for weeks, months and at times years is the toughest part. Especially when sources are based on a separate time zone.

I recall staying up at odd hours just to have a chat because it just may speed up the process. Yes, there will be many roadblocks. Plus, the ones who'll turn their backs on the person, after getting a share of their archives, without returning the promised contents. One has to trust one's instincts and gut to make better decisions.

Video archiving is a very important aspect of our game. For pictures, we have organizations like Getty where you can see and purchase pictures of almost all sporting events. But when it comes to footage there is no such option. We should always be grateful to the few known & many unknown faces who have recorded games in past (when it was more tough with VHS/DVDs) & to those who dared to share their content in public domain despite copyright threats.

Q.) Are you planning to even get IPL videos? Or is the copyright too stringent?

I already have almost every single IPL, CLT20 games in my archive as I said earlier but reason why I don’t post them is they are very copyright prone. I had got claim from BCCI earlier this year for posting a 10 second clip of Kohli hitting a four of Warne. Once in a while I do post a few but I delete them in few hours & request viewers to download it if they want.