HYDERABAD, INDIA: The Tribune recently had the opportunity of sitting down with Gagan Daga, the founder and CEO of str8bat, one of the most credible cricket technology companies in India, for an interview. Founded in 2018 by Daga, Rahul Nagar and Madhusudan R, str8bat has built one of the most trusted batting intelligence platforms in cricket. Its technology – as thin as a sticker – attaches directly to the bat without altering its balance or feel.
It captures real-time data on bat speed, bat path, timing efficiency, impact zones and swing consistency, strangely with no cameras, no wearables or a complicated setup. The platform has earned partnerships with Cricket Australia and Rajasthan Royals, for whom it served as a skilling partner during IPL 2025. It is also backed by respected cricketing voices, including Greg Chappell and Kiran More.
Today, more than 25,000 players use str8bat globally, and the company is expanding into markets such as India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and the Caribbean. Recently, str8bat also collaborated with star Indian batter KL Rahul, launching the KLR1 x str8bat kit, which is a personalised AI-powered batting kit. Rahul has been signed as str8bat’s brand ambassador.
Excerpts from the interview:
1. Thank you for speaking to us, Mr Daga. Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and how str8bat came to be?
GD: I spent over a decade in the technology and enterprise world before starting str8bat, working across SAP, strategy consulting and corporate strategy roles across Asia Pacific and Japan. But somewhere along the journey, I started asking myself a much larger question around impact and what kind of meaningful problem I wanted to solve in the long run.
Sport has always been deeply personal to me, especially cricket. And when we started studying it more closely, we realised something fascinating: unlike most industries, sport still operates largely on outcomes and lagging indicators, runs scored, averages, strike rates, while the actual drivers of performance like timing, control, motion, repeatability and decision-making patterns remain largely invisible. That became the starting point for str8bat. The idea was not just to build a sensor or a cricket gadget.
The larger vision was to create an intelligence layer for human motion in sport, a way to convert invisible performance patterns into measurable learning systems. Over time, that has evolved into a much broader AI-led sports learning and performance intelligence platform. We believe the future of sport will increasingly move towards intelligence-led development, where players are able to understand not just outcomes, but the underlying patterns driving performance improvement.
2. What gave you the idea for such a unique innovation? Heretofore, such technological advancements were unknown in cricket.
GD: I think the starting point was recognising that cricket still relied heavily on subjective observation. Coaches and players could see outcomes, runs scored, timing, and shot selection, but there was very little ability to objectively measure the mechanics behind performance in real time. At the same time, almost every other industry was becoming data-driven and intelligence-led.
So the question for us was: why should sport remain instinct-only when technology can help uncover much deeper performance patterns? That led us towards building technology that could capture invisible aspects of batting like bat speed, swing path, timing efficiency, and impact quality, without changing how a player naturally trains or plays. But the larger opportunity was not just around analytics, it was around learning.
Once performance patterns become measurable, you can start building far more personalised and scalable coaching experiences. We also felt that cricket, despite being one of the world’s biggest sports, still lacked accessible real-time performance intelligence systems at the grassroots level. In a country where millions play the game, talent is abundant, but structured feedback is not. That gap created a very important opportunity for innovation. That is where str8bat’s journey really began.
3. What makes str8bat unique in your opinion, given that it does not take the help of a complicated setup?
GD: I think the biggest differentiator is that str8bat fits into the player’s natural training process rather than forcing the player to adapt to technology. A lot of sports technology, historically, has required controlled environments, multiple devices or external infrastructure, which makes adoption difficult beyond elite setups. We wanted to build something that works as naturally in a local academy as it does in a professional environment.
The sensor is extremely lightweight and sits directly on the bat, so players can simply practice the way they normally would while still receiving objective performance feedback in real time. That simplicity becomes very powerful because it makes high-quality performance understanding far more accessible and scalable, especially for younger players who may not always have access to advanced coaching infrastructure. We believe technology adoption in sport only scales when it becomes frictionless for the athlete. That philosophy shaped a lot of our product design decisions.
4. Can you tell us a little about your collaboration with KL Rahul? What does he bring to the table?
GD: KL Rahul brings a unique combination of technical understanding, adaptability and composure to the partnership. Across formats and conditions, he has consistently been recognised for the way he reads the game, builds innings and approaches preparation, and that creates a very rich layer of cricket intelligence.
What made the collaboration exciting for us was that it was never designed as a conventional endorsement. Rahul was genuinely aligned with the larger vision of making elite-level learning more accessible through technology. Through limited-edition str8bat x KLR, an AI-powered batting sensor and learning kit, we are able to bring elements of his batting approach, preparation mindset and decision-making into a much more personalised learning experience for players.
I think that creates a very different kind of athlete partnership, one built around knowledge and performance understanding rather than just visibility. More broadly, it also reflects how athlete partnerships are evolving globally, from brand-led endorsements towards scalable learning and intelligence ecosystems.
5. It is known that at str8bat, you position yourself as a GenAI-powered interactive learning platform, personalised to each user’s own performance data. Can you please explain this in detail?
GD: Traditionally, coaching has largely been built around generic instruction. Two players with completely different batting patterns often end up receiving very similar advice because there has historically been limited ability to continuously measure and interpret individual performance data at scale. What str8bat does differently is that the platform captures real batting intelligence through the bat itself, things like bat speed, swing path, timing efficiency, and impact quality.
The GenAI layer then helps contextualise that data into personalised learning insights. So instead of simply showing raw numbers, the platform interprets performance patterns and helps players understand areas like shot execution, tempo, control or progression in a much more meaningful and adaptive way. The system is not just analysing isolated sessions; it continuously learns from player behaviour and progression patterns over time. That creates a far more personalised and evolving learning experience.
Over time, the system becomes increasingly personalised because it learns from the player’s own development journey and behavioural patterns. We believe that is where the future of sports learning is heading, from mass instruction towards much more intelligent and individualised feedback systems. Ultimately, the larger goal is to make elite-quality performance understanding far more scalable and accessible than traditional coaching models alone have been able to achieve.
6. Tell us your thoughts about creating such a niche product. Did you face any major challenges in its packaging and distribution?
GD: Building str8bat has been exciting, but also extremely challenging because we were trying to solve a very different kind of problem at the intersection of hardware, software and sport. One of the biggest challenges was getting the hardware experience absolutely right. In cricket, feel and balance matter enormously, so even a small change to the bat can affect performance. We went through multiple iterations, from early bulky prototypes to a very lightweight form factor that feels almost invisible during play.
A critical part of the engineering journey was placing the sensor exactly where the energy transfer happens on the bat, so we could capture accurate data without interfering with the natural batting experience. Another challenge was building trust around an entirely new category. Sports technology adoption, especially in cricket, is still evolving, so players and coaches initially needed to see clear value before changing established training habits.
Distribution was another major challenge, especially in a market like India, where the ecosystem is both massive and highly fragmented across offline and online channels. We realised early on that accessibility would be critical for scale. That is why we partnered closely with OEMs like SG, where the sensor can be integrated directly at the manufacturing stage, while also building a strong retail network across India and international markets. For us, the goal has always been simple: make the technology seamless for the player, while solving the complexity behind the scenes.
7. Finally, do you think that str8bat can be embraced by those in the pathway of becoming professional cricketers? How can it help them improve their game?
GD: Absolutely. In many ways, that is one of the most important groups we are building for. The journey of becoming a professional cricketer is extremely competitive, but access to high-quality feedback and structured performance understanding is still very uneven, especially at the grassroots and developmental level. A lot of young players still rely heavily on subjective observation or occasional coaching inputs. What str8bat does is create a much more continuous feedback loop around batting.
Players are able to understand aspects like timing efficiency, bat speed, control, swing consistency and impact quality in a measurable way over time, which helps make improvement more objective and trackable. I also think it helps players build greater self-awareness around their own game. Cricket development is not only about technique, but also about understanding patterns, decision-making and repeatability under different situations.
The more visibility players have into their own performance behaviours, the better they can adapt and evolve. Over time, that can help young cricketers train more intelligently, identify weaknesses earlier and accelerate their overall development pathway. And in a country like India, where so much cricketing talent can go unnoticed simply because of uneven access to infrastructure and coaching, that kind of performance visibility can become incredibly important.
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