"This is our Frankenstein. We made it. And now it's left the room."

A cricketer said this about the IPL and our guest, Sharda Ugra, India's most respected cricket journalist with thirty years of covering the game, brought it to our studio. And honestly, we couldn't think of a better way to open this episode.

Last week, RCB and Rajasthan Royals sold for nearly $3 billion combined. With private equity in the building, it looks like the IPL has never looked bigger, richer or more untouchable. But something is off.

The broadcaster paid $6 billion for rights and is bleeding $2 billion. On the other hand, the media rights that fund 80% of every franchise's revenue are projected to flatline and the most perfect advertiser IPL ever had, real money gaming, just got banned.

So we did what any sensible person would do and called Sharda.

In what was honestly one of the most electric studio sessions we've had on Two by Two, Sharda brought 18 years of institutional memory while Praveen Gopal Krishnan brought the business lens and Rahel Philipose asked every question you'd want to ask if you had Sharda across from you for 90 minutes.

The IPL cannot fail. But can it figure out how to succeed? That's what this episode is really about.

Read more:

- Sharda's 2008 India Today piece titled 'Changing the rules'.

- Sumit Chakraborty's piece in The Ken titled 'What private equity sees in IPL...'.
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This episode was produced by Uddantika Kashyap and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer.

If you liked this episode, share it with your friends, family and colleagues. And if you have thoughts on the discussion, write to us at twobytwo@the-ken.com.

Last week, Rapido launched Ownly, its zero commission food delivery app and went straight for Swiggy and Zomato's throat.

This is the same company that dismantled the Uber-Ola duopoly with just a simpler model, cheaper rides, and a very different idea of what India actually needs.

Their weapon this time is zero commission. They're betting on restaurants that are fed up, customers who want cheaper food, and a rider fleet that's already in place.

So we got Kunal Khattar, the investor who backed Rapido from day one and made 88x on that bet to break down whether lightning can strike twice. We also have Gautam Balijepalli, who runs one of the largest cloud kitchen operations in India and tells us what it looks like from the restaurant side.

Along with our guests, Rahel Philipose and Praveen Gopal Krishnan discuss, can Rapido steal a bite from Swiggy and Zomato? Or is food delivery a completely different beast?
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This episode of Two by Two was produced by Uddantika Kashyap and mix and mastered by Rajiv CN.

If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends and family who would be interested in listening to the episode. And if you have more thoughts on the discussion, we’d love to hear your arguments as well. You can write to us at twobytwo@the-ken.com.

Last year, when Trump's tariffs blindsided the world, we called Mohit Satyanand. He made sense of the chaos before most people had even figured out what to panic about.

This time, we didn't wait.

A war broke out in the Middle East, the Strait of Hormuz closed, and within days India was rationing cooking gas, cancelling flights and watching the rupee slip. Everyone has an opinion, but Mohit has something rarer. He has his skin in the game. As an investor who has spent decades watching India's economy up close, his question isn't what happened. It is what it reveals about India's deepest, oldest vulnerabilities.

He explains the oil dependency we've ignored for 50 years. How we have seven days of strategic reserves nobody talks about. The remittances that hold up millions of households. And the uncomfortable truth that none of this should have caught us off guard.

In this episode of Two by Two, Mohit sits down with Rahel Philipose and Praveen Gopal Krishnan to answer not what is happening, but what it means for India and for how long.
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This episode of Two by Two was produced by Uddantika Kashyap.

If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends and family who would be interested in listening to the episode. And if you have more thoughts on the discussion, we’d love to hear your arguments as well. You can write to us at twobytwo@the-ken.com.