Blockchain and Cricket: A New Field for Verifying the Truth of Information

Last Friday evening I was sitting in a fan park in Croydon. The man beside me was scrolling his phone, then suddenly blurted out, “The score is different in two places!” I looked — and it was true. One app showed 183/6, another showed 186/5, and a social media post declared the match over. Three different numbers, three different sources, and not one with a clear citation.

In that moment I felt that we talk far more about cricket than we do about information — who is saying it, where it comes from, and what the proof is. In eleven years of journalism I have learned that a score's source is worth far more than the score itself. And it is precisely here that a familiar yet mysterious word is stepping onto cricket's new field — blockchain.

Match information today travels a strange road to reach us. A scorer at the ground types a number, it goes to the official feed, from there to an app, from the app to an aggregator, from there to social media, and at last into the hands of that gentleman in Croydon. At every step a number can change, a source can vanish, an error can become permanent. Yet no one is held accountable. As the media, we too often repeat that error, because we take what we see first as the truth.

I saw this reality up close during Euro 2026. After Christian Eriksen collapsed on the pitch, all kinds of rumours spread on social media — some said the match was cancelled, some said his condition was critical, some spread outright falsehoods. It became clear that in the race for speed, truth loses. Had there been a safe, immutable store of information, perhaps many of those errors could have been prevented that night.

This is blockchain's proposal. In simple terms, it is a ledger that, once written to, no one can unilaterally change. Behind every entry lies a digital signature that says who wrote it and when. Imagine a scorer recording every ball of a match, each entry sealed with a timestamp. If anyone then tries to alter the score, it is impossible without the consent of the whole network. The result — a verifiable, traceable, accountable store of information.

In cricket its uses spread beyond the scoreline. Consider this: after an allegation of match-fixing, if every bet, every transaction, every suspicious communication were preserved immutably, how much easier the investigation would be. In the fight against corruption, blockchain can be a silent witness.

There is another area — tickets. Fraud over fake World Cup or IPL tickets is nothing new. With blockchain-based tickets, every ticket has a unique identity that no one can forge, and no one can sell the same ticket twice. For the fan, that is reassuring news.

A second major possibility is fan tokens. Many cricket teams are already considering digital tokens for supporters, letting fans vote on team decisions and receive special privileges. The idea is seductive — the fan stops being merely a spectator and becomes a stakeholder. Here lies my caution. If that gentleman in the Croydon fan park, confused by two different scores, cannot buy or understand a digital token, then fan tokens will represent not the crowd in the fan park but those with deep pockets.

There is another layer — contracts. In automated systems called smart contracts, prize distribution, player payments, even sponsorship money can be released automatically once conditions are met. No paperwork in between, no delay, no “I'll send the cheque.”

Yet like any technology, it has a cost. The older kind of blockchain, running on vast computing power, has long drawn environmental questions over its electricity use. Newer systems consume far less energy, but that does not mean the complexity has gone. Building this infrastructure is no simple task for a small cricket board.

Another sensitive area — a player's age and eligibility records. Age disputes are nothing new in cricket, especially in age-group teams. If every birth certificate and every proof of eligibility were preserved immutably, much of the dispute could fade. But a caution — in a country where birth registration itself is unreliable, such a system could open a new door to exclusion.

Now to my real doubt. Blockchain does not create truth; it only preserves it. Whatever data you put in stays in forever. If the scorer types an error, that error is immutable too. Technology can block a lie, but it cannot stop the person telling it. The responsibility for what is entered into a data system belongs only to humans. Blockchain does not erase that responsibility; it often hides it.

I have long argued that a heatmap makes it seem we know everything about a player, when in fact their real role, their work inside the team, remains invisible. The same trap awaits blockchain. A clean, immutable ledger will make it seem that everything is true, everything verified. But who provided that data, why, and in whose interest — the answer to those questions is not written on the ledger.

The bigger question is who will control this ledger. If an international board or a large franchise controls it, then the promise of immutability also tilts to one side. The largest question, though, is ownership. Whose is match data — the scorer's, the board's, or the broadcaster's? Today whoever holds that data holds the money too. If blockchain makes data ownership transparent, then smaller cricket nations too could claim a fair share of the global information economy. The stories of countries like Bangladesh and Afghanistan are often poured into a big broadcaster's mould; transparent ownership can help break that mould.

And then there is the question of cost and complexity. To a small club in Bangladesh, or a minicab driver in Croydon who hears the score on the radio on match day, the ledger's hash code is of no use at all. They want one thing — trust.

Yet I do not want to set this technology aside. Because our real crisis is a crisis of trust. The scene of confusion I saw in the Croydon fan park last year was a picture of a world where the wall between truth and rumour barely exists. The newsletter went out on Tuesday, and by Friday the whole street knew the score — but no one knows whether it was real. In Croydon the fan park turned a postcode into a passport, but does that passport's page bear the seal of truth?

My sense is that over the next few years cricket administrations will slowly begin experimenting with blockchain — first in tickets, then in player contracts, and finally perhaps in storing match data. But success will depend not on the dazzle of the technology but on accountability — who writes, who verifies, and who takes responsibility when it fails.

Because in the end cricket is a game of trust. Before leaving a ball, a batsman trusts that it will arrive within the rules. Before reading a score, a fan trusts that the number is true. If technology strengthens that trust, then blockchain is a blessing for cricket. But if it only adds more complexity and more inequality, then it will be a safe ledger of permanent error — where mistakes enter and never leave.

I will wait for the day when that gentleman in Croydon no longer hesitates as he looks at his phone — because he will know who wrote the score, when they wrote it, and that it is true. That day will be the real victory — not of the ledger, but of trust.