"How long do I have to decide?" asked Amol Karadkar when offered specialization choices.

"Two and a half minutes," said his editor."Two and a half seconds," said Amol. "Sport."

The Deputy Editor of The Hindu — one of India's finest cricket journalists — is back on Inner Athlete.And this time we go deeper. Into his personal journey. Into Sports Katta.

Into women's cricket as a business opportunity. Into the fascinating football culture of Kolhapur.

And into why Marathi sports journalism deserves far more credit.

Three rebel leagues. Three sports forever changed. And a pattern that keeps repeating itself.

Kerry Packer in the 1970s took on the cricket establishment — gave us colored clothing, day-night cricket, helmets, multi-camera setups and ODI cricket as we know it.

The Indian Cricket League in 2007 — backed by Subhash Chandra of Zee — threatened the BCCI so severely that IPL and T20 franchise cricket were born almost as a defensive reaction.

LIV Golf backed by Saudi Arabia — changed how golfers are paid, opened up emerging markets, and forced the PGA Tour to reform from within.

None of them completely "won." But all of them changed sport forever.

And Sameer Pai — who was INSIDE the ICL — joins us to tell these three stories like nobody else can.

India won the Thomas Cup in 2022. The current team just won a Thomas Cup bronze medal — seeded 8th, finishing in the top 4.And the players said they received almost no support. No recognition. No incentives.At the same time — two international badminton events in India have been cancelled. The Premier Badminton League is scrapped. And the sport that originated in this country is being ignored commercially.At Inner Athlete — we firmly believe badminton is India's second most promising sport after cricket. And it deserves far better.

Can Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar or KL Rahul get into today's Indian T20 side?

The Deputy Editor of The Hindu — one of India's most respected cricket journalists — says the honest answer is probably not. And he explains exactly why.

Amol Karhadkar joins Inner Athlete for one of our deepest, most wide-ranging cricket conversations ever — covering IPL's evolution, the auction problem, domestic cricket reform, MS Dhoni's character, and the stories from 2008 that nobody else is telling.

Abhishek Bachchan has done some genuinely good things as a sports entrepreneur.

Pink Panthers in Pro Kabaddi — brilliant. Invested in an organic Indian sport, brought star power, helped make the league popular.

But the Euro T20 Premier League? That is a completely different story.

And at Inner Athlete, we are going to call it out directly.

IPL viewership is down. Ad revenues are decreasing. Governance is under fire. And money is flowing out of Indian cricket into European T20 leagues that haven't proved their business model.Ronald Chettiar joins us for the most honest end-of-season IPL wrap-up covering everything from the governance crisis to the real threat of The Hundred, to why domestic Indian cricket needs urgent reform before it loses out to foreign leagues.

🏏 Our final IPL 2026 deep dive is live.MI had Bumrah, Rickleton & Tilak Verma and still had their worst season in years. RCB found their bowling attack and suddenly look unbeatable. KKR were dead and buried, now fighting for the playoffs.We talked about all 10 teams, what worked, what didn't, and what needs to change.One big take: stop dismantling teams at auction. Build. Develop. Stick together.

You've been doing parkour your entire life — jumping over puddles, vaulting railings, climbing walls — without knowing it had a name.

Today on Inner Athlete, we sit down with Dr. Rishi Prasad — emergency medicine doctor turned full-time parkour coach, co-founder of The Movement Academy, India's most prominent parkour facility, trainer to the Indian Army, and the man behind Hrithik Roshan's iconic rooftop sequence in Vikram Vedha.

Gyms are dying. Recreational sports are booming. And the age group driving this revolution might surprise you.

Ronald Chettiar joins us for one of Inner Athlete's most practical and personal episodes — covering everything from why recreational sport is the future of fitness in India, to how to pick the right sport for your age, to the controversial world of peptides for injury recovery.

From Sachin Tendulkar playing a steady anchor role at 125 strike rate to Vaibhav Suryavanshi smashing a 36-ball century at 200 plus.

IPL opening batting has undergone the most dramatic transformation in cricket history — and today we decode every phase of it with data, analysis and the teams that are winning because of it.

Plus — KKR vs Punjab Kings. Two Bollywood-owned teams. Both know how to chop and change. But one has finally found the formula. Will they throw it away again?

In this episode we cover:

🏏 125 strike rate to 200+ — the complete evolution explained

🏏 Score below 130 strike rate — win only 45% of matches

🌟 Suryavanshi, Jaiswal, Prabh Simran, Priyansh Arya — the new era openers

🏆 Ponting-Shreyas at Punjab — 55% win rate, the best thing to happen to them

🔮 If Shreyas Iyer becomes India captain — Punjab Kings will be the biggest losers

🎯 200 is now a chaseable total in IPL — what does this mean for cricket?