Travis Basevi, the architect of ESPNcricinfo’s iconic StatsGuru search engine, and one of the web site’s most important influences in the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, has died at the age of 47 following a two-year battle with most cancers.
Basevi was born in Geelong, Australia, in March 1975, however it was whereas learning in Sydney as a youngster in the early Nineteen Nineties that he first encountered the nascent CricInfo, through the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) system that helped to attach its free on-line neighborhood of cricket followers earlier than the daybreak of the mainstream web.
“We instantly hit it off. Travis was a hilarious guy,” Mishra recalled. “We collaborated on lots of things for CricInfo – the first and biggest one was the completion of the Test and ODI scorecard database in 1995. At that time he didn’t know how to program – however he would painstakingly go through every scorecard and crosscheck them against references like Wisden etc. and find and correct errors.
“We painstakingly created the first scorecard format, that was not solely pleasing to the eye but additionally displayed all related information, together with the correct quantity of spacing to suit gamers like “Bromley-Davenport”! When we lastly introduced the completion of the scorecard database in 1995, it was an enormous milestone for CricInfo.”
“Travis was quintessential Cricinfo,” Sambit Bal, ESPNcricinfo’s global editor, says. “He strayed in for the journey and did no matter wanted to be accomplished, formatting scorecards, coding them and different pages, and writing ball-by-ball-commentary, and maybe additionally some match experiences. His programming genius was established early, and he would quickly be a colossus behind the scenes of the web site.”
However, Basevi’s crowning achievement was the creation of StatsGuru, the first iteration of which went live in 1998. While other colleagues talked about the possibilities of mapping the range of data now populating the site, Basevi simply went ahead and did it, using his self-taught brand of coding to connect every facet of a cricket scorecard like a puppeteer with endless strings.
“Travis took over sustaining and extending the stay scoring interface from me,” Mishra explains. “During the 1996 World Cup we had created some scripts to undergo the scorecards and create stay stats – he would then go on to take these scripts to create his masterpiece – StatsGuru. The huge influence that StatsGuru has had on the cricketing world can’t be defined in phrases. Travis was additionally extremely modest and unassuming, only a few individuals knew of the contributions he had made.
“StatsGuru was at once a leap of imagination and a coding marvel,” Bal provides. “It was built in the late ’90s – think about it – and remains his most renowned contribution. Cricket fans will be eternally grateful to him for it, but to those of us who worked with him and still work on the site today, his stamp is everywhere.”
As CricInfo’s international affect grew, Basevi travelled the world for a collection of assignments, together with to Bangladesh in 1998 for the authentic Champions Trophy (then the Wills International Cup). In 2000, he was headhunted by the formative Wisden.com, for whom he would construct the bespoke Wisden Wizard stats engine, however three years later he returned to his authentic calling, following Cricinfo’s acquisition by Wisden, and the merger of the two web sites.
Basevi moved to London in that point, and made his residence in Kilburn, in simple commuting distance from his beloved Queen’s Park Rangers in addition to a variety of his favorite pubs in Camden and Chalk Farm – visits to which he would catalogue with the identical forensic element that he dropped at his cricket statistics.
In 2014, Basevi took up a brand new position as Chief Technology Officer at CricViz, the place he constructed the database and instruments that underpin the firm’s personal statistical evaluation.
He leaves behind his spouse, Jane, and son, Victor, and an enormous community of colleagues and admirers.
“He was more Cricinfo than any of us would ever be,” Bal provides. “And he will live on as long as Cricinfo does.”
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket