Cricket has been under the microscope over the last few years, with high-profile players such as Azeem Rafiq and 2023’s Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) report exposing the sport’s historical problems with racism and elitism. Tackling such widespread and serious institutional problems such as these takes fresh and innovative thinking.
Kashish Agarwal is someone looking to drive change by embracing cutting-edge technology and advances in AI to create positive impact and increase accessibility to the sport through his tech-first company, Cricket Bat Company.
Kashish found that all roads led him back to his self-proclaimed ‘first love’ of cricket. Whether he was working on a film or with a marketing company, something always brought him back to the sport. He decided it was no longer worth fighting against the inevitable, so he launched Cricket Bat Company with a mission in mind.
No Two Bats Are the Same
“If I just gave [someone] a cricket bat and told them to hit it and swing, regardless of how they play, it's going to be different from the next person. And that's exactly what we thought.” With the help of a proprietary algorithm that Kashish and his team designed, each cricket bat they craft is tailored specially to the player.
With his game-changing product firmly embedded into the cricket community, Kashish has wider aspirations to help deconstruct the barriers that surround cricket by using AI to help equipment become more affordable.
“With football, all you need is a football. Whereas with cricket, you need a cricket bat, you need a ball, you need pads, helmets and the rest of it.” He explains, “The main mission for Cricket Bat Company is to get accessible cricket to every part of the world. Cricket is a sport, I feel, that brings a lot of communities together. However, because of the cost of the gear or the equipment needed to play it, it is seen as an elitist sport and there's a lot of barriers to entry.”
“I'd like to live in a world where the barriers to entry are no longer there... If we can find a way to make the equipment at a lower cost and still protect the important aspects of your body, we all could play cricket more often and remove those entry barriers.”
Reaching the Impossible Dream
“I think I'm too young to give advice to people!” Kashish tells us. Instead, he collects and collates inspiration from all sorts of sources to find motivation. Most recently, he found wisdom in YouTube creator Casey Neistat’s video, Sisyphus and the Impossible Dream. After a serious motorbike accident in 2007, Casey was told he wouldn’t be able to run again. Casey reacted by setting himself the ‘Impossible Dream’ of running a sub three-hour marathon.
Setback after setback, “by the age of 40, he realised that if he didn't do it then, it wouldn't matter to the world. No one would care because it was just his hobby, right? Some personal project. But for him it was his impossible dream.”
It’s this notion that helps Kashish to push himself, “So whenever you have a passion project that you feel could be your future, just go ahead and try it. What's the worst thing that happens? You fail. You try again.”
The Slough Community helps the Dream
After spotting the invite to pitch at Plus X Innovation’s Slough Trailblazers competition, Kashish decided to go for it and pitch an idea that he had been working on - “[An] AI based coaching platform that connects international level coaches with people that cannot afford them.” He won the competition back in November, and claims that that moment has been an instrumental part of his journey, “It gives a brand like mine a professional setting. It allowed me to get a permanent space and meet a lot of people from the community within Slough.”
By connecting with other innovators, Kashish gets one step closer to achieving his own impossible dream and creating new ones. All thanks to the community at Plus X Innovation in Slough.
“The people that I get to meet every day, every day I'm meeting two to three new people from different backgrounds, different businesses. I mean, it just fosters so many ideas for creativity. Every day I’m able to think of new ideas because of the people I'm able to meet here.”
To keep updated on what’s next for the innovative Kash, follow him on LinkedIn, follow him on Youtube or check out his website here.
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