The mockery of cricket on TV

Rahul Bhattacharya is India's best cricket writer. Just read his take on the crap being dished out on Indian TV channels in the guise of cricket. It is so bloody true, it is sad! Anyone who has seen NDTV Cricket Controversies once cannot forget it - that show haunts me when I sleep at night. NDTV is one of the better channels, so God save the shows on Hindi channels like Star'sMatch Ka Mujrim (catering to the so-called LCD) . Ugh, I cringe at that title. Enough said!

Category: Cricket

A peek into the Sehwag mind

Cricinfo is generally very good and their WAC magazine was even better. Mercifully they have resurrected it in a new avatar - Cricinfo Magazine. This article from that magazine examines what went through Sehwag's mind when he played a classic innings of 155 in Chennai when Aus was visiting India in 2004. This article gives you a wonderful idea of what batsmen are thinking, why Sehwag is different, and what you are missing with bad commentary on telly!

I think this is a brilliant idea - to get the cricketer to talk through the innings/bowling spell with the video running - this gives me more insights than the million other star-written articles that tell me the bleeding obvious.

I hope Cricinfo does more of this - like getting Sachin to talk through HIS 155 in Chennai against Pakistan (sad end to the knock,but fascinating nevertheless), Dravid on his 233 in Adelaide of the 140 odd in Headingley, and Srinath on his match-winning spell in Ahmedabad, or Ganguly on his 140 odd in Brisbane. Good fun can be had!

Category: Cricket

Link to my article

aka shameless plug - an article I wrote has been published on the Sport and Technology website. Go here to read a 20,000 feet above sea level view on the future of broadband and mobile in Indian sport. Remember, this was intended for a European audience (many would still have their own sweet ideas of India - hint - see the picture of the Indian woman in the article) - so I tried to provide an overall perspective of how things stand, and what could potentially happen. I may be wrong, but with such new technologies no one can really say for sure what the future holds. And no, I did not have anything to do with the ghastly picture - they chose it, not me!

Categories: Sport business, technology

Small is beautiful

..and according to Seth Godin, it is also the new big. Go read that link, and spend a lot of time on his blog - his writing style is fantastic, cutting the crap, point-blank-in-your-face stuff that makes a lot of sense.

I have always hated big companies - I just think the legalese, bureaucracy and obsession with processes stifles innovation and personality development massively. I could never work for an employer with 2,000 co-workers, let alone one with 20,000. I really like the smaller company culture, where you know everyone's favourite drink and colour, their strengths and weaknesses and what works best with them and you. As Seth so wonderfully puts it, as long as the people in charge can think big, small is really the new big.

I am not knocking the value of processes - heck, a big company could collapse without processes and procedures. The trick for the biggies is to break the company virtually down into logical and smaller entities so that the culture and spirit sorta resembles a smallish company's verve. Some do, some don't - and the ones that don't end up not being so successful. I remember Jack Welch writing about his unending attempts to maintain small-company culture in the behemoth called GE (in the book Straight from the Gut).

Thank god the industry I work for now does not have too many godzilla-sized companies.

Category: Business

Good, quick and bad running between wickets

Rahul Dravid's runout yesterday was perhaps the only way he could have been dismissed - but that dismissal brought about a thought in my mind about the various kinds of runners in cricket. Now Dravid is definitely not a quick runner, but does that necessarily make him a bad runner?

Broadly speaking, there are two qualities that you need as a runner - judgement and speed. A combination of both is ideal, but if you could pick one area you would rather pick judgement over speed - cuz you can run like a hare but if you judge poorly, either you or your partner could be in serious trouble.

Here are a few categories in my opinion (please note, no stats were examined - I think mere number of run outs does not tell any story - circumstances and actual video evidence is key especially with run outs):

The quickies who judge well:

Dean Jones was probably the first to really showcase the benefits of quick running - well, to me anyway. His running between wickets was breathtaking, and really showed up the skill deficiencies in the Indians at that time (I am talking late 80s early 90s). He also seemed to judge the run quite well, knowing when to not run, and aware of his partner's ability as well. In the 90s, Michael Bevan was the absolute undisputed champion of running between wickets. His speed was dramatic - converting 1's to 3's, and backing his swiftness to make the impossible run. Jadeja was good for India, and so was Azhar (except for one notable incident in Sharjah). Ricky Ponting is very good (Pratt notwithstanding!). Tendulkar is not in the super-fast league, but is quick enough, and is a good judge of a run.

The 'reckless' speedster:

I have no stats to back me up on this one, but I stick my neck out and say that Jonty Rhodes was not the best judge of a run. Boy he was quick, but probably not the smartest. I remember him diving way too often to make his ground - a good runner does not need to do that, and his partner's heart rate would surely have gone up with Jonty at the other end. You want to focus on your batting, and not about when to take off for the next risky single!

The sage:

These blokes are good judges, but sometimes lack the speed to back their judgement. Dravid fits in nicely here - he has the willingness to take quick singles, knows where the fielders are, but sometimes does not have the momentum or the athleticism to make it to the other end on time.

The plodder:

There are a few here - the poor athletes who can't even judge if they can sneak one or not. Inzy obviously tops this - he is a real plodder. Ganguly and Laxman are disastrous as well, and Steve Waugh has been involved in a few dismissals where judgement went awry.

The amusing/annoying:

Srinath and Kumble are the stars of this category. Their running (especially when together in the middle) was hilarious. Srinath's mid-pitch confabulations/hand shaking with Raju in WC 1992 is stuff of legend. Ranatunga must surely deserve the award for most annoying runner. His ambling/waddling across 3/4ths of the pitch went against the first principle of running - to run the first run hard no matter what. He did that right through WC 1996, annoying me to death.

Category: Cricket

Operation Yao Ming

Yao Ming is China's most famous man - a poster boy for MNC products, a Chinese hero who conquered the NBA - the new face of an aggressive, super-achieving China. But a new book (review here) seeks to uncover the horrible truth behind this success story. Operation Yao Ming, by journalist Brook Larmer, claims that...

...Yao's birth had been anticipated for decades by Communist officials -
desperate to boost national pride through sports - who had been tracking his
family for two generations.
He describes a system where doctors armed with
special growth-predicting manuals measure youngsters' bones and pubic hair to
identify future athletes. Weightlifters must be squat with strong torsos; divers
need tiny hips to minimise splash; basketball players must simply be tall.

This harks back to the Soviet Union's athletic prowess during the Cold War - where they used sport as a strong vehicle to go one up on the US, and in the process using shady science and coercion to force young Russians into taking up sport. China has had its share of drug allegations, but Yao's case seems quite startling. Lamar says

Yao's grandfather, one of Shanghai's tallest men, was discovered too late for
basketball but his son, the six foot nine Yao Zhiyuan, soon found himself
dragged into the sports system.
There he was paired off with the six foot two
Fang Fengdi, China's women's captain who had been a feared Red Guard during the
murderous Cultural Revolution.
The two were encouraged to marry in a system
with undertones of eugenics, the controversial gene-pool manipulation espoused
by the Nazis and previously trumpeted by Beijing.

Apparently Yao himself hated the game until he was 10, but didn't really have a choice. While there is no proof that he was given harmone treatment, Lamar says it is very likely indeed.

Shocking, if any of this is indeed true. China is a very unique place, and the mystery surrounding the Great Wall just got deeper. This also shows just hoe important it is for China to win in sports, and also perhaps why they will be the No.1 country in Beijing 2008.

Categories: China, sport

I can't 'beer' with this

The Times of India group must surely have the worst website designers in the world. Their flagship newspaper's website is the most atrocious piece of virtual estate on the web - it looks worse than the sleaziest porn sites, with half-naked women, terrible headlines and content, and a billion pop ups and pop-unders to screw your browsing exerience.

Their sister publication, the Economic Times, is no better. While the content is better here, and there aren't so many pop-ups (maybe I don't notice because of the blockers I have installed) - the way they organize and present content sucks. I am no cognitive expert on user interface design, but just click here and tell me if you want to continue reading this article - 'Please beer with us'. It is an article republished from Knowledge@Wharton about how beer companies in the US are relooking at their marketing efforts - which should make for good reading. However, the way it is presented is ridiculous - this has been broken up into ELEVEN pages - so to read this article I have to click 11 times, and therefore will be bombarded with ads on each page! Is there ANYTHING more annoying than this? There should be a rule against such blatant commercialism - but who am I kidding? This is the Times Group, and they can do anything as long as it sells! But seriously, are the advertisers gaining from this? Sure, their ads are being served more times on the page, but does the user experience (which is terrible) not rub off on the brand as well? The only one benefiting from this (short-term only IMHO) is TOI, because so many clicks increase page-views and time spent on the website, therefore artificially driving up prices for ads.

The other website where articles have been broken up like this is the International Herald Tribune - but atleast they have an option to reformat the article to view it in one page.

PS: As with everything on the Web, there is a work-around. I click on the print this article link, which generates a nice one-pager article. I just move the print pop-up to the side of the screen and read the article. Hah! And you know what, just because you annoyed me, ET, I will not buy your advertiser's product (a Sky box in this case!).

Categories: Internet, marketing

$350 million and counting

$350 million is the base price set by the BCCI for the media rights for Indian cricket for the next 4 years - an astounding sum of money any which way you look at it. This has also put to rest all speculation that with the new Government regulations of sharing cricket feeds with Doordarshan coming into force, the rights value could actually fall. Of course, bids have to be made still, but it is very likely that there may be an increase over the 350 mill $ that the BCCI has set as base price.

What does the rights entail?

- 162 days of live cricket per year for the next 4 years at a minimum. This includes 12 Tests (60 days), 30 ODIs, 70 days of domestic cricket, and 2-7 offshore games (primarily India - Pak games played in venues like the US, Dubai etc).
- Media included cable, DTH, broadband, mobile and radio.
- If a universal bidder can bid for the whole package, and their aggregate bid is higher than the individual bids for specific media and region bids, the universal bidder wins all the rights.
- The BCCI will do it's own production for TV, and the chosen broadcast partner will have to carry the BCCI logo as well.

If you recall, Zee had bid 308 million $ for the previous bidding process, which got stuck in court. Why is the BCCI asking for more this time? For starters, the BCCI has struck deals with popular countries like Australia, England and Pakistan to have more reciprocal tours. A stable calendar with more home games against these countries and fewer games against Bangladesh and Zim make the cricket more interesting. Of course, the 70 mandatory days of domestic cricket will be a bit of a drag for the broadcasters, but it is also a challenge for them to popularize the game at the domestic level. If they can pull it off, that would be another goldmine waiting to be mined.

Also, this time the rights include other media like broadband, mobile, DTH and radio - by creating different slivers of rights to give out, the BCCI is attempting to maximize revenue. It will be really interesting to see how the broadband and mobile rights are valued. India's mobile and broadband market is still very nascent, and it remains to be seen if the BCCI can get the right value for these rights, especially since 4 years is a very long time for these technologies. Radio is an interesting one because finally the AIR stranglehold seems to have been broken, and with the recent FM bidding for various cities going on in India, there is money to be made on these rights. DTH is too insignificant now, but with the 4 year window now open, again a tricky one to evaluate.

I hope to write more on these aspects in subsequent posts.

Categories: Sport business, cricket

The Champion is out!

That's it then - Big Daddy India has announced that it will not play the Champions Trophy after the 2006 edition, thank you very much! We all know why, of course. So there you go - RIP for this format of the game, unless the ICC can pull a major rabbit out of the hat. Methinks unless the promise India heavy guarantee money (unlikely, since the ICC would be left with nothing) OR they manage to raise sponsorship from England and Australia (again unlikely because the ICC does not want to enter into eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the BCCI), this format is dead. Probably not such a bad thing - maybe it could be replaced with a Twenty20 World Cup instead. Of course, India willing!

Category: Cricket, sport business

It's not a good wicket for a Test match...

..no, I didn't say that - Sehwag did. On a day when he did stuff very few are capable of, this was the most mundane thing he did or say. But it was so bloody true! Over 1000 runs have been plundered in a curtailed Test Match with a day to go, and just 7 wickets have fallen - only 5 to the bowlers - great batting perhaps, but terrible Test cricket.

Can't blame Sehwag and Dravid, nor Afridi, Akmal, Younis and Yousuf for tucking into the unbelievable eat-as-much-as-you can buffet on offer - but this was the Ind-Pak equivalent of a Matt Hayden 380 against Zim, or a Jayasuriya 340 against India. It all goes into the record books, but does it really matter?

Sehwag was just unbelievable today, and when words fail men like Prem, you know that it was surreal. Cricinfo's Dileep says Dravid's knock will tempt India into playing Dravid as opener more often, and he rightly says this is a temptation that we should resist.

Both Sehwag and Dravid must be credited for ensuring that Pakistan's 679 was quickly forgotten, and India go into the next match without any psychological scars - a run rate of 5.37 is just one of the crazy stats from the day. Spare a thought for the bowlers from either side - they can be excused for wanting to strangulate the curator.

Good it rained

I know it is a shame when cricket matches get rained away, but only if your team was in a winning position! I am not too sad the match was disrupted by rain today - after what happened yesterday with Messrs. Afridi and Akmal playing out worst-case scenario for our hapless bowlers. It is easy to blame the bowlers for this disaster, but the pitch and the Pakistani batsmen have to share the blame as well:-) Pakistan did what they could to set up the match - but with the weather predictions as it was, the match was always headed towards a draw even before today's curtailment. The rain obviously made things easier for India, but really, on a pitch like this, India could have easily scored enough in the first innings to make this a very dull draw in any case. With more rain forecast over the next two days, 0-0 is where this stands. Such poor pitches and scheduling perhaps does not deserve any better.

Category: Cricket

Squeeze in an ODI series or three

India's love for ODIs is well documented - and what better than a tri-series with Pakistan and Australia at home to get the moolah flowing and the crowds packed in?

I had written earlier that India's home season looks very dry for this year thanks to the Champions Trophy. Well, not any more, if this article is right. While there was no available team after the Champions Trophy, India seem to have managed to squeeze in a very lucrative ODI series BEFORE the tournament! And against the two top draws in India! Amazing indeed - but probably was on the cards after the BCCI deal with Cricket Australia to schedule 20 ODIs in the next few years, and the new-found bonhomie with the PCB as well. God knows how they will actually schedule this tri-series though - because as per Cricinfo, India is scheduled to be playing YATS (Yet another tri-series) - in Sri Lanka at the same time. Expect some squeezing and moving of dates in the next few weeks - because the BCCI needs to schedule this tri-series to get solid bids for TV rights. Of course, any tournament held in India during Aug is bound to be blighted by rain - but will that be factored in at all?

Categories: Sport business, cricket

Saving sex for your old age

Warren Buffet is a phenomenal success story - and when he says something, it pays to listen, and try and heed! Here's what he had to say regarding career choices:

If you want to make a lot of money go to Wall Street. More importantly though, do what you would do for free, having passion for what you do is the most important thing. I love what I do; I'm not even that busy. I got a total of five phone calls all day yesterday and one of them was a wrong number.

A few months ago I was talking to another MBA student, a very talented man, about 30 years old from a great school with a great resume. I asked him what he wanted to do for his career, and he
replied that he wanted to go into a particular field, but thought he should work for McKinsey for a few years first to add to his resume. To me that's like saving sex for your old age. It makes no sense.

Cracking quote that! Sure, there is value in the MBA dude going to Mckinsey to gain experience, contacts and weight to resume, but I guess the trick is to figure where to draw the line. I went through this dilemma for around 5 years doing other stuff (albeit for different reasons). I did not have the courage/conviction to move to "what I would do for free". Was the 5 years well spent? Kinda, but now I sometimes wish I had done this earlier. I am certain the MBA grad who wants to go to Mckinsey will also have exactly the same thoughts some years down the line.

Saving sex for your old age - what a line. Its puts things into perspective so beautifully - They should teach such stuff in B-School! Read the whole interview here. Link thanks to Anand, who runs a wonderful blog here.

Categories: Personal, entrepreneurship, inspirational

Why does India not Champion the Trophy anymore?

The ICC Champions Trophy has always been controversial - when Dalmiya introduced it many years ago, it was when he was ICC boss, and he figured it was the best way to raise money for the ICC ostensibly to expand the game to newer countries. However, the format which was adopted then just kept growing, and the farce in 2004 in England (with Aus V USA taking the cake) was perhaps the last straw - in an overcrowded calendar, teams didn't like playing this tournament, and with too many riff-raff teams playing, the value was diluted immensely.

2006 was India's chance to host the event - but they don't like doing it. They protested to the ICC that this format of the game should be scrapped - but since they have committed earlier, they will have to go ahead and schedule this edition anyways.

Why don't India like the tournament anymore? Pure and simple - money. Since this is an ICC event, bulk of the revenues goes to the ICC. TV revenues, sponsorship money and any other licensing opportunities are owned by the ICC. The host nation gets compensated somewhat for hosting the event, and some proportion of gate receipts (not sure on this one). However, that is paltry compared to what India would have got from a normal home season. What really takes India's goat is the fact that nearly 2 months of prime cricket-playing time is taken away. Oct-Nov is peak for India's home season, and normally India would schedule atleast 4-5 Tests and 7-10 ODIs - resulting in huge revenues for the BCCI. So, in cricket season 2006-07, these months will yield a paltry sum thanks to this tournament no one wants!

With the BCCI trying to schedule more bilateral tours with top (read lucrative) countries, it wants the ICC to host as few events as possible. The ICC is naturally not happy, but can it do anything much against the might of the BCCI? Also, the ICC is bound to face opposition from other nations on pure cricketing reasons alone - because the format and scheduling of the Champions Trophy has been terrible. Come on, how can this event be held just 5 months before the World Cup? You are devaluing both events this way.

As things stand, India has a barren home season this year. After the Champions Trophy, India travel to SA in Dec, and NZ in Feb, before the World Cup. Every other team is occupied in bilateral series in Nov and Jan - and India will have to use all its might to arm-twist some other team to come over to play atleast an ODI or seven! Aus and England will have the Ashes to focus on, SA and SL have already come and gone, India are touring NZ anyways, and Pak host WI. So that really leaves Bangladesh (India don't particularly like them coming here) and Zim! Hmm!!

Category: Sport business, cricket

No bite, no meal!

I know it is a disastrous pun, but what I meant to convey was that India's bowling had no bite today in Lahore, and therefore had no fun at all. Pakistan made the most of the conditions to mount a huge total of 326. With 8 still to come (including Mr. Inzy, Afridi and Akmal - arguably the batsman in best form now) India are staring down. But as Dileep of Cricinfo says here, India have given away more on Day 1 and have come back into the game before. It will require a huge effort to save this game (let alone win it), but it is possible. What did India lack today?

- Pace in the bowling department. Imran Khan has said many times before, and today as well - that in these conditions pace in the air is the key to get wickets. Pathan was slower than usual, and Agarkar was, well, Agarkar!
- Kumble had a bad day. I have never seen him bowl so many short balls to anyone else apart from Aravinda de Silva!
- Bhajji was getting it to jump and turn, but lost that somehow.

Younis Khan and Yousuf were terrific though, and with the pitch a bit low and slow, Kaneria can be a handful. However, Shoaib could be the key. This tour will prove to the world that his rehabilitation is complete. Is it?

Categories: Cricket

Fantastic Infosys

Infosys has consistently been delivering terrific Q-on-Q results - and this quarter has been no different. A 35% growth Y-O-Y on revenues, and a 30% growth in profits for the quarter, with a similar guidance for the entire year is nothing short of spectacular, and a resounding endorsement that the Indian offshoring story is still going very strong. Revenues of 2500 crores (555 mill $) and profits of nearly 650 crores (145 mill $) for the quarter is great. The yearly guidance for 2005-06 sees Infosys easily entering the 2 billion $ league, just a year after it breached the 1 billion $ mark! Any which way you slice this, it is great going.

Infosys has 50,000 people working for it now, and the growth seems to be unabated. They plan to add 16,000 more people next year, but most of the growth will be outside Bangalore. Thanks to Messrs. Gowda and gang, Infosys is forced to look outside because Bangalore has no land to offer to Infosys! How crazy is that? There was talk about some 300 + acres of land near Yelahanka (North Bangalore) - but that deal seems to have collapsed - which has forced Infy to look at cities like Chandigarh and Kolkata - where land is perhaps cheaper, labour is cheaper and the Government is more friendly than in Bangalore.

I really wish the Yelahanka land deal comes through - a - it is great for Bangalore if they can retain the Infy growth within the city, and b - I have a house near that area, and land values will shoot up if Infy sets up office there! Selfish ol' me!

Categories: Bangalore, Technology

Pardon the wonky template

I am trying to make this more readable that it already is - but HTML has a crazy way of upsetting your best laid-out plans. Hopefully this will get sorted out soon.

Categories: Admin

Me and my blog 101

Hi there, thanks for coming over.

Well, my name is Ashok Karanth, and I am from Bangalore, India. I currently reside (temporarily) in Cardiff, UK, but Bangalore is home, and I love that place. I completed (just about) an Engineering Degree from this wonderful place called KREC Suratkal. They call it something else now, but I couldn't be bothered with these new names.
I realized midway through the course that the "hardcore" technical line was not for me, and therefore decided to do a management degree - so off I went to IIM - Calcutta. After 2 years of doing pretty much nothing, I hit the corporate world with a "coveted" engineer-MBA double barrel gun!

I worked in CTP (currently part of Novell) for a while, then moved on to a start-up called Orbit-e (now merged with E5 Systems) and then to Jubilant Biosys. Thanks to these companies, I had the good fortune to travel the world, trying to sell IT/biotech services as well as acting as a consultant for IT projects. While I was doing reasonably well for myself, I somehow missed that buzz.

You see, I am hopelessly passionate about sport. Sport is fun, and I figured that there must be a way to make a living out of what I really love doing. I therefore took a giant leap in faith (atleast for me it was!) and joined the Frontiers Group in Bangalore. It has been an exciting ride ever since, with new industry dynamics, different working cultures and processes and great learning. After all, I was really starting from scratch.

That is where I am now, and that's me!

What's with this blog?

This blog will contain my opinions on stuff that interests me. Hopefully there will be no specific niche area. However, since sport and its marketing/management interest me professionally and personally, expect some lopsidedness towards that subject. However, I try to follow happenings in various sectors - things that give me my kicks include the mobile and Internet, the potential that exists in China and India and of course Bangalore. I would like this blog to resemble a genuine South Indian thali meal- with lots of rice (the staple sports content), and many smaller side-eats (the other topics).

Usual disclaimers - Whatever I write here are my personal opinions ONLY. Nothing written here is official (yeah, the Pepsi tagline) - and can be construed as any company's official view. This blog and its contents belong to me, and me alone.

Category: Personal