Conversations with Sports Fans – Shamit Desai

MotoGP Logo
One of Shamit’s favorite spectator sports is MotoGP.

I dive into the wayback machine for this episode of Conversations, tapping a long-ago work colleague of my wife, Carol, from her days at the old Gateway Computer stores.

Shamit Desai and Carol both worked at the Gateway store in Roseville, MI, at the turn of the 21st Century and, as life happens, sort of went down separate paths after their time together.

Shamit wound up in Washington, DC, London, Hong Kong, and India (twice!), which is where I caught up with him for this long overdue catch up on his life as a sports fan.

To say Shamit’s fan life is varied would be a tremendous understatement!

We talk about his introduction to American sports in the greater Houston area upon arriving as a youth with his family, his fondness for Hakeem Olajuwon, attending an Oilers’ game in the Astrodome, and then about his eventual move to the Detroit area where, as a parking valet at a downtown hotel, he had opportunities to hob-nob with many sports legends.

He loves all motor sports so there’s plenty of auto – and motorcyle – discussion and, of course, cricket, which he is actively playing as a bowler for a local team. Much like previous guest, Nikhil Kulkarni, Shamit oozes patience in attempting to continue educating me on the rules of the game.

My Conversation with Shamit Desai.

Conversations with Sports Fans – Nikhil Kulkarni

My Summer of Cricket author Nikhil Kulkarni joins me this week on Conversations with Sports Fans.

Confession Time: I know very (very!) little about the sport of cricket.

And I suspect many of my listeners are not unlike me

Having said that, we are – most-assuredly – in the minority. There’s an estimated 2.5 billion (yes, that’s billion with a B) cricket fans worldwide, making it the second most followed sport on the planet. It trails soccer by an estimated 1 billion.

  • Side Note: You might be interested in seeing the Top 10 and where your favorite sport resides (or doesn’t) as of this 2024 report.

So, when I was approached by an Australian book publicist about having author Nikhil Kulkarni – a self-proclaimed cricket tragic (more on this in a moment) – contact me about having Nikhil as a guest to discuss his book, My Summer of Cricket: Three tests, one fan, and decades of stories, I was more than game.

Especially after I asked Google to give me the definition of a cricket tragic: “an extremely passionate, almost obsessive fan of cricket, someone whose life revolves around the sport, experiencing deep emotional highs with wins and devastating lows with losses, often sacrificing other things for the game and knowing every detail, from stats to folklore.”

This is my kind of guest!

Just over a year ago, Nikhil attended three of the five test matches in the bilateral India-Australia Border-Gavaskar Trophy matches in the Australian cities of Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. Following his nearly 3 weeks immersed in national cricket competition, he set out to write the memoir-esque book noted above, My Summer of Cricket.

Understandably Nikhil and I discuss cricket – and he’s exceedingly patient with me! – but we also discuss the life of a passionate (e.g. tragic) sports fan and the communal nature of being one which is universal no matter the sport your fandom fancies.

Nikhil Kulkarni is this week’s guest on Conversations.