A professional cricket player from India, Ishwar graduated from MSc Sport Management in 2025. He has since gone on to work as a performance analyst and started developing his own fantasy sports app.

We caught up with him to talk about his reasons for studying a master’s at Bath and how to best prepare for a career in the sports industry.

What did you do before coming to Bath for your MSc?

I was a professional cricketer back in India and have always loved the sport. I did my bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and worked as a data analyst, so have been in different streams through my career.

But I always felt happy being on the cricket pitch and I wanted to upskill in the sports field, so I decided to do my master’s. I narrowed my choices down to Australia and the UK, and ended up coming to Bath because it had great rankings for sport in particular.

I landed in Bath in September 2024 and got to work with some amazing members of the Faculty, with whom I still interact a lot; the experience was brilliant. We had a diverse set of people on the course, different experience and mindsets, and a good curriculum as well.

Do you have to be an athlete to study sport management?

It’s definitely not a requirement, but you obviously have to be passionate about the sports industry and how it functions, so having personal experience helps!

It’s useful to have that experience of what happens behind the scenes in professional management, marketing or operations, but the course also teaches you about these things.

Did you choose to do a dissertation or a consultancy project?

There’s an option to do a consultancy project with external partners, but I wanted to do a more research-focused dissertation. I still got to apply my study to the real world though, because I worked on a project for Benfica (the Portugese football club), which was great as some of our lecturers are from Portugal and have those direct connections. I was able to look into how the club could potentially expand their following in India, based on my market research and own experience.

We also had a couple of field trips that were fun, for example to Ashton Gate Stadium in Bristol and to Lausanne in Switzerland, where iworkinsport are based. Both of them were really nice, and it would be great to have more trips like these to different sporting organisations!

As an Indian student coming to the UK, how did you find studying and living in Bath?

At master’s level you don’t have as much contact time, so we were only on campus a couple of days a week, but the people on my cohort were great and being in seminars with them was really good as everyone had different insights. I’m a bit more introverted by nature, but still gained valuable experience with group assignments.

Bath is a beautiful city and pretty small, so you can go from one place to another in very little time and commuting up to campus doesn’t take long. Groceries, cafés etc., are all easy to get to and even though it’s slightly expensive, it’s a great city to live in and experience for a year.

Of course, it’s quite different from Chennai, where I’m from, but I expected this when I came here, so I wouldn’t say I had a shock! If you’re curious and happy to adapt, you’ll be absolutely fine – the biggest difference was the temperature!

What have you done since graduating?

I first worked with a local football club as a performance analyst and then moved to my current job at Slough Cricket Club as a performance manager. I probably have another ten, twelve years left in me to play cricket professionally on the side as well, so I’ll try to build a stable career that still allows me to focus on cricket.

As a performance manager, I look at both operations and individual performance, analysing videos and looking for individual and team improvements. I’m also setting up a pathway programme where we identify and nurture talent for the club.

On top of that, I'm currently working on an app that’s similar to Fantasy Premier League, but for cricket. Players can combine their knowledge with actual events and challenge friends with the teams they build. I’ve built my own algorithm based on specific performance criteria in cricket, but I want to venture into football in the future as well.

What’s your advice for people thinking about going into sport management?

The first thing that I would probably tell someone who wants to do sport management is to really understand what you want, and whether you really want to be in that field. If you’re passionate about sports and how the industry functions, whatever you end up doing for work will feel a lot more rewarding.

And the second thing is to not underestimate the value of networking – make use of the connections your classmates and lecturers have and build good relationships – it’s a huge market!