My Story
The Doosra Story
Engineering the Future of Sports Materials
The Great Uniter
My obsession with cricket began in 2011, beneath the electric sky of the ICC World Cup in India. Watching an entire nation unite as the home team lifted the trophy revealed the true power of the game to me. It was a shared heartbeat that connected my great-grandmother to my youngest cousins, bridging every generation. Cricket, I realized, was a great uniter.
My introduction to the sport took root on the bustling streets of Mumbai through gully cricket, where every alley, dead-end, or empty parking lot was a hibernating pitch waiting to come alive at a moment's notice. My summer vacations in India were filled with these endless games—until 2016, when my family moved to London.
Joining the Middlesex County Cricket youth programs shifted my journey into high gear. I found myself climbing the steep, competitive ladder of representative youth cricket. Summers became a relentless cycle of training, competing, and immersing myself in the game. Cricket was no longer just a pastime; it was my life.
A Choice at Five Years Old
Parallel to my athletic journey was a deeply ingrained personal belief. From a very young age, the idea of eating meat made me question things. The concept of taking a life for my own nourishment simply didn't sit right with me. When I was told that I needed meat to "grow big and strong," it felt like an unbelievable contradiction to the kindness we are taught to show the world around us.
The Game Changers
At five years old, I made a conscious choice to stop eating meat entirely, eventually transitioning me and my family into a permanent vegetarian lifestyle. I never looked back. For over a decade, my life as a competitive athlete and my life as a vegetarian coexisted perfectly. High-performance sports and ethical, plant-based living never felt mutually exclusive to me, a reality later highlighted by several documentaries, my favourite being The Game Changers on Netflix.
The Golden Duck That Changed Everything
Everything changed one morning after a frustrating Golden Duck. Desperate for technical tips to counter heavy swing bowling—cricket's version of a curveball—I turned to Google. My searches took an unexpected turn, leading me down a rabbit hole into the manufacturing process of cricket balls. I was exposed to the grim reality of leather production and traditional chemical tanning. You can see how these traditional processes work in detail through manufacturing overviews like this Cricket Ball Factory Process on YouTube.
My discovery left me completely aghast. The sport I loved so deeply was played with a ball wrapped tightly in an animal carcass. As I looked closer, I realized this wasn't just cricket's hidden secret. From American football and baseball to basketball and rugby, the world's most loved sports—the games that bring joy to billions—rely heavily on animal skin.
The Birth of Doosra Materials
It was at this intersection of athletics and ethics that the seed for Doosra Materials germinated. In cricket, a doosra is a delivery that spins the opposite way to what the batsman expects—a complete shift in direction. I knew that is exactly what sports equipment needs.
I imagined a revolution: a material that could perfectly mimic traditional leather without the ethical cost. To survive at the highest level of sports, I knew this new material had to meet extreme engineering standards:
- Adaptive Malleability: The ability to contour, break in, and adapt over time just like traditional leather.
- Rugged Impact Resistance: The structural integrity to survive repeated 90+ mph bat impacts.
- Aerodynamic Surface Friction: The precise texture required to generate authentic aerodynamic swing through the air.
If I wanted a truly ethical game, I would have to build the solution myself. Today, I operate Doosra Materials as a research company dedicated to engineering high-performance, non-animal materials to replace leather across the sports industry, starting with the iconic cricket ball.
Built from the Ground Up
I believe in absolute dedication to the craft. To prove my commitment, I didn't build Doosra Materials on corporate venture capital. I funded this company from the ground up through grit, and hard work:
- Academic Fuel: Funded directly by the proceeds I made tutoring local kids in advanced Mathematics and Physics.
- Market Trading: Capitalized by my own disciplined stock market trading and investment strategies.
- Sweat Equity: Backed by money earned from household chores and neighborhood car washing.
- Family & Friends: Supported by personal loans borrowed from my family and friends, who believed in my vision when it was nothing more than an idea.
Every penny I earned was funneled directly into material science research. I am building the future of sports equipment from scratch, ensuring that the games we love no longer require us to compromise our values.
If you share this vision for an ethical, high-performance future in sports, please consider funding my research and joining me on this journey.