Cricket Buffs Get Virtual Stock Exchange

Internet users may now witness a fusion of the corporate world and cricket mania on the newly launched virtual cricket stock exchange called CrickStock.com. Developed by students of IIT Roorkee and IIM Ahmedabad, the portal enables cricket buffs to buy virtual shares of international cricketers and trade them online. The stock prices of cricketers will be determined by their recent performance and what fans feel about them.

CricStock lists shares—limited and in equal numbers of face value of Ç 100 (Ç stands for CricStock Rupee) each, of international cricketers of all test-playing countries.The initial listing is done following an IPO of cricketers taking part in ICC World Cup 2007. More cricketers (player-stocks) will be added with further tournaments taking place around the cricketing world. These cricketers might not have necessarily played test cricket, but selection into their national team (for Test matches, ODIs, or 20-20 Internationals) is a necessary criteria for being listed on CricStock.

Rahul Roushan, one of the developers of the website explained that idea is to capture the mood and sentiments of cricket fans and translate them into numbers, which will be reflected by stock-prices. He said, "Currently the website has issued IPO (Initial Public Offering) of all the international cricketers of test-playing countries. A person gets one million of virtual cash as soon as he registers with the website and he can use that money to buy shares of any number of these cricketers. He has to bid within a specified price range for buying the shares of different cricketers."

The virtual shares would be allocated to bidders immediately after the opening ceremony of World Cup 2007. The site will then include trading features, discussion forums, news, profiles of cricketers etc.

Karthik Laxman, another final year student of IIMA who is associated with the website said, "The website has attracted hundreds of registered users within a couple of days of launching. People have registered from different cities of India and even from countries like Pakistan, England, Australia, USA et al. and the numbers are growing as more people are learning about it."

"It's also a fun way to learn how a stock exchange functions. You will get dividends based upon how your stock-companies or your cricketers perform on field, and you can earn capital gains by selling shares of high performing cricketers. All these functions would be available once secondary market opens. Right now people can register and bid in the IPO to get the shares of their favorite cricketers", Karthink added.

The developers expect the website to attract both cricket lovers and people who want to learn about basics of stock market. They may also add other cricketing parallels from real stock exchange like Mutual Funds, Options and Futures etc, once the website attracts enough dedicated users after the World Cup.

Click here for more info on CrickStock.