The story begins with disappointment. In 2016, India’s cricket team arrived in Florida to play the West Indies at Lauderhill’s Broward County stadium—the first bilateral series between the two sides in North America.
Vinny Kumar and Rashmi Prabhakar Kumar – a cricket-obsessed couple, like thousands of other fans across the United States – wanted to see MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli in person. Within five minutes of the on-sale, they realized they weren’t going to get any tickets. Not at face value, anyway.
They eventually paid ten times the listed price for a seat. Lots of the Kumars’ friends had also been relying on the couple – who live 30 minutes from the stadium – to get tickets. These fans flew in from Maryland, Chicago, Dallas, California, Seattle—spending hundreds, and in some cases thousands, on flights, hotels as well as tickets. The experience was scattered, expensive, inefficient. Vinny and Rashmi, technology professionals with over two decades in IT and talent acquisition between them, saw the problem with the clarity of entrepreneurs: there should be a streamlined solution for this.
Their realization became Crickbuster, now the only ICC-approved Online Travel Agency (OTA) based outside South Asia and the dominant force in North American cricket hospitality. In the years since, the Crickbuster team has taken more than 10,000 fans to cricket matches across four continents, built AI-powered sports technology, and positioned themselves at the intersection of two massive trends: the professionalization of cricket in the United States and the explosive growth of global sports tourism and experience.
The three-year build
Vinny and Rashmi didn’t jump immediately from frustration to business. First came a meeting with Jeff Miller, CEO of the CPL’s franchise Jamaica Tallawahs now Antigua and Barbuda Falcons and a cricket entrepreneur who would become a key advisor. Miller connected the couple with Dr. Kishore Shallow, then Vice-President of Cricket West Indies (CWI) (and now President), along with the CWI commercial team. Together, they pitched a proposal: give us licensing rights to create official match ticket inclusive travel packages for the next India series. If you want fans from out of state to have a proper experience—hotel, flight, match tickets, stadium transfers—we’ll build it.
CWI agreed. The license was set for the next bilateral series in 2019. In the interim, Miller gave Crickbuster another opportunity: bring fans from North America to the Caribbean Premier League. Vinny and Rashmi spent 2016 through 2019 refining the model. They arranged travel packages including meet-and-greets with Chris Gayle and Andre Russell. They discovered something crucial about their customer base.
“Fans care about the overall experience,” Vinny says. “Watching a cricket match itself is great. But they want to take advantage of the opportunity to have an excursion, see the beaches, go to Disney World, take a cruise.” The insight was simple but significant: a three-hour T20 match leaves a lot of hours unfilled. Cricket and travel weren’t separate products. They were one integrated experience.
When the 2019 India series arrived, Crickbuster was ready. Crickbuster secured premium seating directly behind the Indian team dugout, negotiated two-night hotel packages with breakfast and stadium transfer included, and even hired a Canadian DJ to create atmosphere. Over two days, the company sold 1,200 seats—600 per match. The experience worked.
Then came COVID-19. Crickbuster had secured official OTA status from the ICC for the 2020 T20 World Cup in Australia, but the tournament was canceled. Everything stopped.
Building through uncertainty
The tournament that restarted Crickbuster’s momentum took place not in Australia but in the United Arab Emirates. The 2021 ICC T20 World Cup, originally scheduled for India, was moved to the UAE and Oman. Crickbuster brought 472 fans, becoming the first American-based sports travel and experience company to operate at an ICC global event. The packages included more than cricket: Burj Khalifa tours, desert safaris and Abu Dhabi day-tour full itineraries designed around both the sport and the destination.
By 2022, the operation had scaled. For that year’s ICC T20 World Cup in Australia, Crickbuster took 350 people to Sydney and Melbourne. But the company wasn’t just moving customers from point A to point B. Crickbuster had figured out that hospitality wasn’t about logistics—it was about access. During the India-Pakistan match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Crickbuster arranged behind-the-scenes experiences: breakfast with Australian cricket legends Merv Hughes and Chris Lynn, photo opportunities, and Q&A sessions. The kind of access that turned a match into a story fans would tell for years.
“The difference between buying a ticket and going to the stadium versus going through Crickbuster,” Vinny explains, “is you don’t have to worry about anything: which hotel, where to buy the ticket, is it legitimate or not, getting to and from the stadium, chartered buses for tours, insider meet-and-greet events.”
The 2023 Cricket World Cup in India marked Crickbuster’s first 50-over tournament. The format required a different approach—nine group-stage matches, longer days at the stadium, travel across virtually every major Indian cricket metropolis: Chennai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune, Dharamsala, Lucknow, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. The company moved 2,000 fans, most from the United States but also customers from Canada, the UK, and Australia. The majority were Indian Americans traveling to see India play, but the customer base was rapidly diversifying.
The 2024 inflection point
The 2024 ICC T20 World Cup, co-hosted by the United States and the West Indies, was a different kind of challenge. Expectations were higher. Fans were more dependent on Crickbuster because it was viewed as local, the tournament was sprawled across multiple venues, and travel logistics were complex. The company sold 3,500 ticket inclusive travel packages across the tournament, creating two-match packages and arranging chartered buses from multiple pickup points in New Jersey and around New York.
The Caribbean leg posed the biggest logistical test. Commercial flights were extremely limited and expensive. Crickbuster chartered its own flights to get fans to both semifinals and the final. “I’m still getting calls from people thanking us for making this happen,” Vinny says. “Fans thought they weren’t going to make it.”
The operational intensity of 2024 proved the model could scale. But it also clarified the technology problem Crickbuster needed to solve. Vinny, who spent years doing coding work in his career, had been thinking about automation since the company’s early days. The vision: an AI-powered platform where customers input their travel dates and the system generates complete itineraries— official tickets, flights, hotels, excursions—in one place. The beta version is now live.
Meanwhile, Rashmi – who left a successful career in technology and talent acquisition to commit full-time to building the company – had been focused on Crickbuster’s product development, operations, and social media. The division of responsibilities between the couple is clear: Rashmi oversees the internal architecture—curating affordable yet high-quality hotel options, structuring secure official ticket packages, shaping the end-to-end customer experience, and managing operational and financial challenges. Vinny focuses on business development, Sales, CRM, strategic IT partnerships, and overall growth. Between them and the team they’ve built, they feel ready to take their business to the next level.
Why cricket lagged—and why it’s catching up
The sports hospitality market is booming. Industry analysts project growth rates between 50 and 100 percent over the next five to seven years, driven by rising incomes in emerging markets, increased corporate spending, and a global appetite for premium experiences. Estimates of the total addressable market vary in size, but they are all at least in the tens of billions of dollars.
Cricket has been conspicuously late to this trend. One major reason, Vinny argues, is infrastructure. “If you want to create hospitality, you need a stadium that is built for that,” he says. “Australia has hospitality boxes. England is starting to create five-star hospitality. But cricket has a very limited set of stadiums around the world where you can implement a hospitality experience.” In many venues, Crickbuster takes it upon itself to build makeshift setups. The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, one of the world’s largest cricket venues, is an exception—it was designed with premium hospitality in mind.
But infrastructure is improving. In the United States, three stadiums now host international cricket: Broward County Stadium in Florida, Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas, and the Oakland Coliseum in California. A fourth venue is under construction in Atlanta. As the sport grows domestically and Major League Cricket expands, the infrastructure gap is closing.
The timing matters. Cricket’s global growth trajectory and the maturation of the North American market are converging at the same moment. The ICC, which operates marquee global tournaments, has made hospitality and premium experiences a strategic priority. Of the handful of ICC-approved OTA worldwide, Crickbuster is the only one based outside South Asia—a positioning that gives the company unique access to American customers and American commercial partnerships.
The North American advantage
North America is far and away the leader in this sector. The North American sports hospitality market is a dominant, rapidly growing sector, driven by deep fan engagement, major leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB), high spending, and demand for premium, tech-enhanced experiences like VIP suites, behind-the-scenes access, and tailored events. Hospitality is a core product for teams and venues in the US and Canada. It is this context – and with these benchmarks – that Kumar is building Crickbuster
Vinny is clear-eyed about where his opportunity lies. “The US fans have more buying and spending power but it’s about more than just that,” he says. “Fans are willing to pay more not just because they earn more but because they truly value a special and positive experience.” The customer base in the United States—estimated at between 25 and 30 million cricket fans—is diverse, spanning India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Australia, and South Africa. It’s a diaspora market with disposable income and a hunger for connection to the sport.
The typical Crickbuster customer used to be a man traveling with friends. That’s changed. Now families book packages. Extended families book together. Solo travelers are increasingly common, particularly among Gen Z customers who, Kumar notes, have different expectations: they don’t need five-star hotels, they just need a place to sleep. Crickbuster is broadening its product set to meet that need as well.
Word-of-mouth has become a powerful growth engine. Crickbuster maintains a 4.8 out of 5 customer rating and a 40 percent repeat booking rate. Fans who attended one event return for the next. The company’s database has grown to more than one million fan inquiries, expanding 30 percent year-over-year. Calls now come from Nepal, Italy, Dubai, Abu Dhabi—markets Crickbuster didn’t initially target but that are finding the company through referrals and online search.
“Our biggest competitor is actually StubHub,” Vinny says. “But people choose us even when our package cost is higher than a resold ticket because of the experience.” The value proposition isn’t just convenience. It’s transformation—a match becomes a trip, a trip becomes a memory, and a memory becomes a story worth repeating.
Building for scale
Crickbuster was a finalist in the cricexec Innovation Challenge held in California last October, a recognition of the company’s technological edge and market positioning. The AI recommendation system Vinny and his team are developing currently operates at 82 percent accuracy in beta testing. The platform maintains 99.5 percent uptime during peak booking periods and integrates with twelve APIs spanning flights, hotels, and ICC ticketing systems.
The business model is straightforward: margins on tickets, hotels, and excursions; premium hospitality and VIP upgrades; sponsorships and advertising partnerships; and a membership loyalty program still under development. Packages range from $499 for a two-night, one-match experience to $1,299 for four-night knockout packages. The average transaction is $700 per fan. Revenue is growing 35 percent year-over-year, and the inquiry-to-booking conversion rate sits at 20 percent.
But the Kumars’ ambitions extend beyond cricket. The company is planning expansion into NFL, NBA, and Formula 1 fan travel by 2026. The core competency—combining official access, hospitality, and seamless logistics—translates across sports. The addressable market expands significantly.
Vinny is also a co-owner of the New York Titans in Minor League Cricket, a franchise investment that reflects the Kimars’ business strategy and personal philosophy. “The ambition in starting Crickbuster is to connect with people,” he says. “When USA cricket becomes successful, when a team wins, cricket grows.” The franchise ownership ties Crickbuster more deeply into the American cricket ecosystem and creates opportunities for fan engagement that extend beyond international tournaments.
Looking ahead
Crickbuster had a busy 2025, handling the Champions Trophy in Dubai and the World Test Championship final at Lord’s. The calendar ahead is dense.
In 2026, the company will manage fan travel for the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka. Crickbuster is already fielding hundreds of inquiries not just from the US and Canada, but from the UK, Australia, India, UAE, other Gulf countries and even South Asia. While there is naturally heavy interest in the February 15 India-Pakistan match in Colombo, there is strong appetite for lots of matches played by lots of Full and Associate nations in both host countries. The Kumars expect this to be Crickbuster’s biggest event ever.
Looking beyond the ICC T20 World Cup, the next India – West Indies series in Florida is scheduled for 2027. Major League Cricket continues to expand, with city-based tournaments bringing international players to American venues. The Olympics are on the horizon as cricket returns to the Games in LA 2028.
The Kumars also see Crickbuster as a platform for social impact. The company has launched a Go Green Travel Green campaign, prioritizing digital-first marketing to reduce carbon footprints, partnering with eco-friendly hotels, sourcing food locally, and using electric or hybrid vehicles for transportation—a shift that has reduced CO2 emissions by 67 percent across its operations.
The hospitality business in cricket is still nascent compared to Formula 1, the NFL, or European football. But the growth trajectory is clear. As stadiums improve, as leagues professionalize, as the fan base in North America matures, the market will expand. Vinny positioned Crickbuster early, built infrastructure when competitors were absent, and created technology that scales. The company now sits at the center of a multi-billion-dollar shift in how fans experience cricket.
What started as a couple of frustrated fans trying to buy tickets in 2016 has become a company operating across multiple countries, communicating regularly with over a million fans, and building partnerships with the ICC, multiple cricket boards, and hospitality providers worldwide. Vinny and Rashmi’s insight wasn’t complicated, but it was powerful: fans don’t just want to watch cricket, they want to be part of it. Crickbuster is building the infrastructure and solutions to make that happen.
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Note: Crickbuster’s Men’s ICC T20 2026 World Cup ticket inclusive travel packages are available at www.crickbuster.com
