Microsoft CEO Nadella is making a cricket app in his free time

(Bloomberg/Saritha Rai) — Microsoft Corp.’s Satya Nadella, a die-hard cricket fan, has been spending his free time coding and designing his own app that he used to analyze the centuries-old game.

The Microsoft chief executive officer talked Thursday about how he combined two of his passions when he designed a Deep Research AI app over Thanksgiving. He then used it to select a team of all-time greats in Indian test cricket, for starters.

“The system produced consensus areas, debates, reasoning chains, everything. It was fantastic,” Nadella said during a company event in Bangalore. “I wanted to get a job on the Copilot team.”

The app will come in handy for Nadella, who has been investing in cricket teams. Alongside other tech executives, he was part of consortium that paid £147 million ($182 million) for a 49% share of UK team the London Spirit. He is also a co-owner of the Seattle Orcas, a professional T20 cricket team, close to where Microsoft is headquartered.

Nadella is meeting business and political leaders in India this week. Microsoft pledged to invest $17.5 billion in artificial intelligence and cloud computing in the country over four years, targeting the world’s most populous nation for growth.

The chief executive was born in southern India and studied engineering there before heading to the US for graduate studies. Nadella has credited cricket for teaching him leadership, persistence and team work.

Nadella on Thursday showed the crowd how his tool researched each decision, starting with selecting the best captain — it was a close fight between Virat Kohli and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, with Kohli coming out on top.

Microsoft included a cricket field during a major redevelopment of its Redmond, Washington, headquarters — where engineers of Indian origin make up a large proportion of the workforce.

“This may be the first proper, recreational cricket ground ever designed and built as part of a major corporate or community project in the United States,” Microsoft said at the time.

(Updated with context on team ownership.)

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