A few hours before the first ball was bowled at the ACA–VDCA stadium in Visakhapatnam, the road outside had already turned into a marketplace.
India were hours away from taking the field for the fourth T20I against New Zealand on January 28. Fans trickled in slowly, some stopping to take selfies, trying to find their gates, others scanning the rows of carts and plastic sheeting spread out on the pavement. Blue jerseys hung on ropes, slung over shoulders, folded into piles.
The names – Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni – were printed in bold, some already creased as they were tried and passed on.
The men and women who sold them arrived much earlier.
They knew this rhythm well. Before the floodlights came on, before the anthem, before the first ball, this section outside the stadium belonged to them.
IND vs NZ 4th T20I: Highlights | Scorecard
Outside almost all cricket venues in India, jersey vendors are a familiar sight. Some are local hawkers who only appear on match days. Others are not. They come from far and wide, travel across the country in trains, follow the Indian team and the IPL calendar with the precision of journalists or the devotion of super fans. Cricket is their route map. Their movement is decided by the match schedules. The stadium gates mark their workplace.
In the billion-dollar ecosystem of Indian cricket, where official kit sponsors such as Adidas shell out hundreds of millions for the right to the Indian crest, a shadow economy thrives in the dust outside the stadium. If 10,000 fans go through the turnstiles, 8,000 of them are probably wearing “unofficial” threads.
But it’s not just local street vendors. They are a sophisticated nomadic tribe who follow the cricket calendar religiously.
In Visakhapatnam, the group was a mixture of locals and out-of-home vendors. The forwards excelled not in what they sold, but in the ease with which they talked about the next venue, the next train, the next game.
“There are now more than 100 days of cricket in the year,” said one. “It became our profession.
They are almost never home when it is in season.
MOVING BUSINESS
They travel in groups, usually between 20 and 40 people, splitting up based on geography. During the IPL, some move along the “Northern Line” covering cities in North India, while others move along the “Southern Line”. The circuit includes international matches – men’s and women’s. If cricket is being played, they are there.
Among them was Bhuvan from Bihar, who does this alongside his daily work at home. Anal Saha traveled from Kolkata. Mumbai’s Umesh looked young – still a teenager – but he had been selling jerseys for eight years. On a good day, he said, he could earn between Rs 4,000 and Rs 5,000.
“Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s shirts continue to sell the most,” he said. “Abhishek Sharma and Hardik Pandya are also in demand now.
Demand is what keeps them moving.
The two brothers – Vishnu from Thane and Umesh from Solapur – arrived in Vizag from Indore, where the ODI was particularly profitable earlier in January. The venue had not hosted a match for a long time, Vishnu said, and that worked in their favour.
The brothers are part of a larger group of family members and friends who travel together throughout the season. They don’t miss a single match. They usually arrive a day or two in advance, scout the area, set up their routines, and wait.
“You will always find local vendors outside the stadiums,” Vishnu said. “But there are more people like us – who travel to every game – than people think.”
Over time, they begin to recognize familiar faces: fans who attend several matches, other vendors, even journalists who move from place to place. The circuit is small. Everyone eventually runs into everyone else again.
JERSEY MATH
The jerseys they sell are replicas – illegal duplicates of official merchandise that is tightly controlled by sports giants with licensing rights from BCCI and IPL franchises. Official jerseys sell for prices far in excess of what many fans are willing to spend on a single match. Outside the stadium, these replicas fill that gap.
If 10,000 people attend a game, retailers estimate that nearly 8,000 of them are wearing jerseys bought from similar peddlers.
However, their edges are thinner than they appear.
They source their shirts from three main locations: Mumbai, Kolkata and Tiruppur. The half-sleeve jerseys cost them around Rs 140; the full sleeve ones around Rs.170. Tiruppur goods, which Vishnu says are of better quality, cost about Rs 20 more for a half-sleeve shirt.
“People don’t notice small differences in the placement of the logo or the quality of the clothing,” Vishnu said. “But we can. The Tiruppur stuff is better.”
On paper, the selling price is simple: Rs 200 for half-sleeve jerseys and Rs 250 for full-sleeve jerseys, giving them a margin of Rs 60 to Rs 80 per shirt. In fact, the negotiation quickly consumes it.
“Most of the time we won’t be able to sell at these prices,” Vishnu said. “People bargain a lot. Sometimes we sell with a margin of Rs 10 or Rs 20 because we are afraid we won’t sell enough shirts.”
Not every match is profitable. T20Is, with their four-hour window, often see lower spends. ODIs that go beyond seven hours tend to be better.
“In T20, people know they are only going to be here for a short time,” Umesh said. “They don’t want to spend that much. A lot of them just use the jersey and throw it away.”
For them, the profit is not calculated per game, but for the whole season.
“Some places we make money, some places we don’t,” Vishnu said. “Meaning is important.”
Both brothers have been selling jerseys since the inaugural season of the IPL in 2008. According to them, the IPL remains the most lucrative season of the year.
When they are not travelling, they both return to Mumbai and work for daily wages. Sales sustains them – but does not replace the need for other work.
NETWORK ON RAILWAYS
Most sellers operate through brokers, usually based in Mumbai. Sometimes the broker is also the leader of the group and travels with them. They work on a commission basis with the option of returning unsold stock. It reduces risks, but also ties them tightly to the system.
Restocking is constant. Orders are placed online, payments are made digitally. The jerseys are sent by freight train to where the group is placed next.
“We don’t carry everything at once,” Vishnu explained. “If something sells more, we’ll order again.”
Women’s cricket jerseys have also become part of this calculation. Vishnu and Umesh said last year’s Women’s World Cup in India was profitable for them, with Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur’s jerseys selling the most.
They are now already gearing up for the upcoming T20 World Cup and have also ordered overseas team jerseys.
Cricket in their lives is not nostalgia or fandom. It’s logistics.
WITHOUT AN INTERMEDIARY
Kolkata’s Papai Das works differently.
He traveled to Vizag with friends but unlike most others he does not work through brokers. He invests his own money — around Rs 50,000 per series — to directly buy the jerseys and sell them.
“It’s risky,” he admitted. “But when it works, the profit is better. Papai Das outside the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam.
Like others, it covers matches across India. The moment the BCCI or ICC releases the timetable, his train tickets are booked. Planning is everything.
When the cricket season is over, he returns to Calcutta and works on construction sites as a daily wage labourer.
“This is seasonal,” he said simply. “You have to move.
GAME CONTROL
Their presence outside the stadiums exists in tension with the official cricket merchandise machinery. Sports brands and franchises armed with exclusive rights regularly talk about the fight against counterfeiting. Raids are conducted. The goods are seized. Warnings are issued.
But outside the stadium gates, the parallel economy persists.
For fans, the choice is practical. Official jerseys are expensive and often unavailable near the venues. Replicas are cheaper, instant and – most importantly – available right where the emotions are running high. Scenes outside Visakhapatnam Stadium.
For sellers, enforcement is an ever-present risk, but not an abstract one. Crackdowns can destroy a day’s earnings. Seized inventory means debt.
Yet they keep coming back.
The system works because the demand never goes away. And because these vendors – the nomads of Indian cricket – have learned to live in its gaps.
As the afternoon wore on in Vizag, the crowd thickened. Other jerseys changed owners. Sellers adjusted prices, rearranged stacks, called out names.
Inside the stadium, the match would last several hours.
Outside, these men were already thinking ahead—to the next city, the next platform, the next stretch of sidewalk that would briefly become home.
Once the gates closed, they packed up their remaining supplies, returned to where they lived, and checked the train schedules again.
Cricket would go on.
So would they.
– The end
Issued by:
Debodinna Chakraborty
Published on:
January 29, 2026