Cricket's New Ledger on Blockchain: When the Account Book Becomes More Reliable Than the Umpire

On an April afternoon in 2026, I stood in the gallery of Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka. It was the derby between Abahani Limited and Mohammedan Sporting Club. Around me, young supporters held up their phone cameras. The press box was still writing its columns, but the Facebook Live comment box had already narrated the match for thousands of viewers. I copied 47 comments into my notebook; there were poems, grudges, statistics, and even phrases like my own columns. That evening I wrote that a Facebook stream in Dhaka had turned a derby into a global terrace. I realised then that cricket's real ledger is written in the memory of those who surround the field. That memory is now changing. The new technology is called blockchain. In 2026, the International Cricket Council (ICC) partnered with Socios.com to launch the ICC Fan Token. A token is not just a digital jersey; it is stored on a ledger that no one can easily update. The Bangladesh Premier League has also been discussing this idea for years. Ticketing, match data, player performances, even umpiring decisions can be preserved in a decentralised account book. I am a 66-year-old sports columnist. I still keep old scorebooks where every ball was recorded. People ask me whether I am against technology. I say no. I am a man of accounts, and the ledger is an old friend. Blockchain is a modern version of that scorebook, except that one person does not write alone; thousands of nodes write together, and no one has the power to erase. I should not forget that during the 2026 World Cup in Russia, I wrote about VAR. After France beat Argentina 4-3, I did not think the game was ruined; I thought the drama of decisions had shifted to the referee's earpiece. VAR did not invent doubt; it gave doubt a replay angle. In the same way, blockchain does not kill the emotion of sport; it gives emotion a verifiable address. The main question is what blockchain actually does in cricket. First, it can stop ticket black-marketing. At any big match, tickets outside the gate cost three times more. On a blockchain, a ticket becomes an unchangeable token; once sold, the previous owner's record stays in the ledger. Second, it secures player data. Bangladesh's domestic cricket statistics are scattered in old papers, club cabinets, and sometimes in someone's memory. Uploading that data to a blockchain reduces the chance of losing it. The third function is the most important: financial management. In franchise leagues, player contracts, bonuses, and match fees are often opaque. A blockchain-based smart contract can ensure that money moves to the player's account automatically once the contract conditions are met. There is no need for intermediaries and no room to say, 'I will pay later.' In my fifty years of watching cricket, this is the biggest change—not money, but the infrastructure of trust. Yet there is a contrary truth we often avoid. Blockchain answers the questions we know how to ask. But cricket's biggest problem is not a lack of data; it is a lack of people who can collect data properly. If we do not train domestic scorers, the information we put on a blockchain will still be wrong. A ledger does not purify dust; it only preserves dust in memory. Technology enthusiasts rarely say this. In 2026, I saw a real test of this in Bangladesh. A young club official was photographing domestic league scoresheets and putting them on an open network. There were many mistakes. But the most surprising thing was that someone was correcting them, someone was checking old files. Decentralisation does not mean irresponsibility; decentralisation means spreading responsibility. That is democracy, and that is cricket's eternal nature. One thing keeps returning to my ledger memory. When I made my ODI debut for the national team in 2026, we did not have an accurate statistics centre. Sports journalists kept their own notebooks. Today the notebook has become digital, but its character has not ended. Blockchain teaches us that what is written remains, and what remains becomes a judge one day. I have no hesitation in admitting that technological excitement sometimes covers the simplicity of the field. In a Premier League match, I saw a young fan spend hours in an app for a ticket, while an older fan at the gate with a paper ticket could not enter because the paper ticket needed a CUV pass. When technology works against people rather than for them, the ledger has no value. To save cricket, technology must make entry easier for people, not create new barriers at the gate. When CricSultan's digital archive (cricsultan.com) gathers the old statistics of the Bangladesh Premier League in one place, researchers will no longer have to search endlessly. For a long time, the preservation of our domestic cricket has depended on individual initiative. Blockchain can make that preservation community-based. If every scoresheet, every match report, and every umpiring decision goes onto an open ledger, the history of Bangladeshi cricket will never disappear. Looking ahead, I see several things. The ICC will place match data from global tournaments on blockchain in the coming years. Franchise leagues will link fan tokens not just to marketing but to stadium experience. And the old scorebooks of our domestic cricket will one day be uploaded to an open ledger. Then the task of correcting history will no longer rest only on a few researchers; it will rest on the community. To those who say blockchain will ruin cricket's soul, I say this: the soul of the game is on the field, in the grass, in the rain, and in the songs of the gallery. Technology cannot erase that song, because technology is not a song itself; technology is the recording machine without which the next generation will not believe our emotions. The decision is now ours. Will we spread cricket's accounts, or will we again forget that the ledger remembers what the highlight reel forgets? Let me finish from my own experience. I did not leave the field; I just started watching Facebook Live. From the stands in Mirpur, I watched Mushfiqur Rahim's cover drive; from the same stands, I saw that when the digital scoreboard shows a slow-motion replay, the crowd roars even louder. Blockchain will be the notebook of that roar. The notebook matters, but so does the roar. So we must hold both things—one hand with the old pen, one hand with the new ledger. Only then will cricket's next hundred years proceed accountably.