Canada, Artificial Intelligence, and Hinterland scouting: The fairytale story of RCB’s newest fast-bowling wunderkind, Avinash Singh

1,689,055 - that’s the population of Indians living in Canada according to the data on Indian government’s Ministry of External Affairs’ website. It’s a dream for many to immigrate to Canada (Often pronounced in a thick accent as a running joke among the Indian middle class), in search of a better life. Avinash Singh, just a year ago had the same dream; or at least his father did. Cut to December of 2022, he might just have found that “better life” at home, in India. At the IPL auction ahead of the 2023 season, the fast bowler from Jammu and Kashmir was picked up by RCB for 60 Lakhs - not the 18.5 crores that Sam Curran fetched, but adequate and then some to transform a family’s life overnight. So, what exactly transpired between two Decembers?

It all began with a failed Army physical last December. His father, an auto driver, had taken a loan from their relatives to ship his son off to distant shores. In the meanwhile, around February of 2022, Avinash Singh visited a cricket academy run by a former J&K cricketer, Mayank Goswami. Until this point, the protagonist of the story had never bowled with a leather ball. “Stunned” is the adjective Goswami uses to describe the first impressions he and many others at the academy had of the latest RCB recruit. With no money to buy ‘spikes’, and with his father being the sole breadwinner for the family, IPL cricket was still going to be a distant dream.

A visit by Mayank Goswami to Avinash’s house and plenty of persuasion later, Avinash was granted a year’s time to bring his dream to life. A quick trip to Pune to assess Avinash’s biomechanics followed. 3 months of effort to work on his skills, and by the end of June Avinash had gotten a grip on the leather ball(no pun intended).

“Kismat” is an often romanticised word in Indian movies across industries. The story of a protagonist from rags to riches, aided by serendipitous occorings to surmount the odds. This story is no different. A story as dramatic in its effect as any boxoffice hit also needs its share of serendipity.

“This auction was an opportunity for RCB to venture into the other wing of our scouting, known as Hinterland scouting,” says RCB’s Head of Scouting, Malolan Rangarajan. “It’s a very very objective way of identifying talent where we don’t use human eyes. We have our AI partner helping us out, identifying talent. When we had gone to Jammu and Kashmir, we had identified Avinash over there. Ever since then, he ticked off a few parameters of us. One of which, the most important parameter is, for him to be able to bowl (at a speed of) 145(Kilometres per hour),” he adds.

A scouting network designed to unearth raw talent, a thoroughly objective system that picks up on specific parameters, had thrown up Avinash Singh. A few months later, at a camp put together by RCB threw such untested talent into the deep end against the pros. Going by the words of RCB’s Head of Scouting himself, “He was reacting very well when put under pressure”.

All the romanticised version of fairytale aside, IPL is a highly cutthroat platform. So, what exactly does Avinash bring to the table that warrants his purchase? “Very similar action to Umran Malik,” says Malolan when speaking about Avinash Singh. “When you venture into this kind of scouting(Hinterland scouting), you want it to be a point of difference. We have time now from December to March-April, and we have time to work on him. I wouldn’t be surprised if we go with our plan, he has the ability to even touch 150 in the future,” he reveals. Over the next few months, Avinash Singh will get to work with Adam Griffith, RCB’s fast bowling coach to further polish his skills before the IPL season. 

Could he realistically be seen as a player who will feature in the eleven for RCB in 2023? “With the impact player rule, we might find that he’s a good matchup to someone. So, we may as well use him as a weapon,” says Malolan.

243 - that’s the number of players who will feature across all ten IPL squads in the 2023 season of the Indian Premier League. An AI-based tool, a system put into place to find uncut diamonds, a failed army physical, a Canada flight that never took off, and a journey that began with bowling with a leather ball for the first time just around 10 months ago - stuff that writers dream of scripting beforehand, but only feels surreal when it occurs in reality. Surely, for Avinash Singh to emerge as a star, being 1 in 243 presents way better odds than 1 in 1,689,055, doesn’t it?