Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Terribly disappointing

Not the best day to be an Indian cricket fan - the capitulation under pressure was quite sickening. I feel for the skipper Dravid - his 100th Test (ok, 99 for India and 1 not-so-super Test) couldn't have gone more disastrously for him. He got the decision after the toss wrong (surely it was a team decision with Chappell in tow), and a situation where all India needed was a draw to win the series turned into a series draw that feels like a loss, just like against Pakistan at home.

A positive move to go with 5 bowlers will roundly be criticized, but as Dravid rightly said, that is the way forward if we have to win more Tests abroad. The strategy was right, the execution went horribly wrong. The shakiness at the top of the order is more than worrying now - we need more runs in all conditions from the rest of the top order. Poor Dravid can only do so much!

Freddie must be over the moon at the moment, and it is indeed a fantastic performance. Great spirit shown by England to overcome the injury crisis and a deserving series draw. Debutants were successful, discards returned and shone like they had never been away, and the experienced hands stood up when it mattered. Terrific team performance!

End of the day, spirit was what was the difference between the two sides - England were prepared to fight it out longer than we did.

Ugh, this feeling sucks!

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Selling-out of the heartland

Simon Barnes is one of the best in the business - of writing, that is. His articles on sport in the Times (of England, not the tabloid in India) are great reads. Do read this one on how every sport tries to change its core to attract the 'non-fans', and in the process runs the risk of alienating the heartland (the hardcore fans of the sport), and also the dangers of pandering to a fickle audience who may leave if they find something sexier the next week. He cites examples from baseball (designated hitters in the American League who replace pitchers), football (penalty shoot-outs) and of course Twenty20 cricket.

Hat tip to Cricinfo for the link.

Monday, March 13, 2006

March Madness on the Net

Anyone who has been to the US can vouch for March Madness - the NCAA college basketball competition that kicks off every spring. CBS has the rights for this high-profile tournament, and has decided to put the first round matches on the Net, FOR FREE. Currently most online sports are pay-per-view or subscription based. Reason - the number of Net viewers were not large enough to get advertisers to fund the programs. However with the Net growing rapidly as a mainstream medium in the US, CBS reckons there is a sizeable audience out there who will watch matches on the Internet and therefore advertisers will be interested in. Of course, the beauty of the Internet is that viewers can watch the match they are interested in, which works beautifully when there are multiple matches in progress. I remember the NBA launching Broadband TV funded by advertising sometime back. Clearly the US is the best market to launch advertising-funded streaming sport given broadband penetration and Net usage levels. This is more evidence that the Internet as a viable business model is back!

Cricket is wonderful at both ends of the spectrum

Yesterday and today have displayed cricket at its finest - some people just don't get how a game played over 5 days can be terrific, and how a smaller 1-day version can also be breathtaking at the same time. The bottom line is that the game is fundamentally great - it just requires two evenly matched teams giving their best on the field to make for a wonderful spectacle.

I cannot describe SA's successful chase of 434 aptly - it was just crazy. I was thanking SA for letting Ponting score 164, thereby reducing the painful World Cup 2003 memory for Indian fans, but what Gibbs did was outrageous. Some will criticize this run-a-thon as being too batsmen-centric, but don't tell me this was not exciting. Cricket needs to find a balance between bat and ball, but what happened at the Wanderers did cricket great good - no doubt about that.

At the other end of the spectrum was India's wonderful win against England in Mohali. A rain-affected match that everyone expected to end as a draw sprung to life thanks to India's young and old - Munaf Patel and Kumble. India's wagging tail and England's collapse in the 2nd innings left India with few to get, which they did. What was especially pleasing about this victory was that it was achieved not on a dust bowl under oppressive heat and inhospitable conditions. Mohali is one of India's best venues, the weather was more English than Indian, and the pitch had enough for the pacemen to get it to rear and bounce, for batsmen to play their shots and for spinners to get turn and bounce. As David Gower said, it perhaps was as close as one can get to the perfect Test Match pitch - that's what makes this victory special.

Will this win make the Indian authorities realise that India does not necessarily disintegrate on a pitch with some pace and bounce?

434 successfully chased! Still can't stop shaking my head!

Monday, March 06, 2006

Indispensable --> bad

Every cricket team needs the ultimate talents - the players who are so good they can win matches singlehandedly, and are talismans for their teams. However, being too good can also be detrimental to the team in the long run. Here's how.

Australia have two absolute gems - McGrath and Warne. One of the best pacemen in the world and the best spinner ever have made Australia the champion team of the last few years. However, they are both in the final lap of their careers andAustralia don't have ready replacements. As India proved in 2003-04 Down Under, England in the Ashes and South Africa now in the ODIs, Australia is eminently beatable without these guys. Since they were the best by far, they rendered themselves nearly indispensable, and Australia are now suffering. The Aussies pride themselves on a strong domestic system that keeps a strong bench in place - in fact it was proved when they dropped Mark and Steve Waugh and kept getting stronger! However, McGrath and Warney are in a different league, and being match-winning bowlers, the task is that much tougher for Australia.

India had one such guy not too long ago. A Tendulkar-less India in the 90s was worthless. Indispensable is too meek a word to describe what he was to the team. However, thanks to a revival under Ganguly and Wright, the emergence of Dravid and now Sehwag, and Tendulkar's own injury problems, we do not collectively self-immolate when we see an Indian XI without Tendulkar. Surprisingly, India has managed to handle the transition better than Australia. It helped perhaps that Sachin is not a match-winning bowler - it is probably tougher to replace champion bowlers than batsmen! Or is it?

The West Indies have the one and only Brian Lara. He is so unbelievably good that without him, the Windies are sometimes worse than India at football! The team even with Lara is terrible most times, but you can't blame Lara for that. They have not found a replacement for him yet, and poor times for the Carribeans seem set to continue.

England have never had that problem for a while. Throughout the 90s they were a mediocre team that had county tigers who got injured if there was a strong wind in the area, and had no super-talents. However, that seems set to change - Freddie Flintoff is the mascot of a new-look England team that can hold its own against all comers. Sure, Harmy can bowl fast and KP can bang it - but if Freddie had gone home before the first Test with the rest, India may have had to just turn up to win the series. Can you imagine a Freddie-less England travelling to Australia and winning a Test? No chance! Freddie has reached indispendable status. How England manage him and without him will determine long term success of the team.

Sri Lanka also have two megastars without whom they are a mere shadow - Murali and Jayasuriya. The back up options for Murali are meagre at best, and the line up without Jayasuriya is still not strong enough. Can Sri Lanka find a few players who can fill in the blanks?

South Africa managed reasonably well without Donald - Ntini and Pollock filled the breach nicely, and the team was always blessed with all-rounders who collectively contributed.

I guess the secret lies in the SA/India method - teams should aim to build a bunch of players who can collectively match the talents of their reigning superstar. To get another Tendulkar is a futile search - but by developing Dravid/Laxman/Sehwag, India have enough batsmen to be prepared for the eventuality. Similarly with SA and Donald. Aus have failed to build back-up bowling options who have the experience and ability to step up to the plate.

Online DVD rental in Bangalore

seventymm has launched an online DVD/VCD rental service in Bangalore. On the face of it, it looks like a service that would work in Bangalore - the city has a reasonably young and large Net-savvy population with time and money on hand to watch DVDs/VCDs.

This idea is a straightforward copy-paste of the Netflix and Screenselect model. In fact, their website features look strikingly similar to that of Netflix, whose co-founder is on the advisory board. Further indication there are and will continue to be many more ventures that start in emerging markets that are direct replicas of proven business models in the West. seventymm has got funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the VC firm that has made lots of money from Hotmail, Skype, Baidu and Overture.

Here's what is interesting about seventymm though - the pricing. I am sure they would have done their research, but the pricing looks shockingly high. 200 Rs a month for 4 movies (2 at a time) or 550 Rs a month for unlimited movies seems high enough, but the bummer is the registration fee of 500 Rs and a refundable deposit of 2000 Rs! Whatever the heck is that for???

I think the pricing is high is because of competition. These guys compete with the neighbourhood VCD/DVD rental shop, who merrily rents out pirated stuff for 10/20 Rs a movie. Even though it is for a day, quality is suspect and all the titles are not available, the price difference is considerable. No normal person will watch more than 10 movies a month (even that sounds too high) - which costs 200 Rs. max. There are many such VCD shops who offer free delivery and pick up services as well, so that benefit is negated as well.

In my opinion, if seventymm can shake off the security deposit and reg. fees, the game changes a bit. What are they scared of - someone not returning 4 DVDs?

The other issue is of personal pick-up of DVDs. In the US and the UK, customers have to mail back the DVDs in a pre-paid envelope. That makes it a lot easier to coordinate logistics. In traffic-crazy Bangalore, if they promise to collect DVDs at a particular time of day and don't turn up, that just leads to utter confusion and dissatisfaction.

I hope this works - the convenience is definitely there, but as with most other things in India, price and execution is critical. I don't think they have got it right so far.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Test for Dravid and Flintoff

This Test match is turning out to be a classic - at the end of Day 3, England are ahead by 71, and assuming 10 and 11 don't add too many for India, England have 180 overs to make something out of this match. Kumble and Kaif did fantastically well to get India close to the England total after a great swing masterclass from Hoggard to make the match interesting. India's batting collapse was saddening, but the spirit shown by the lower order was heartening.

Now with 2 days to go, Dravid will be tested - how does he set fields for this England batting lineup? Does he defend the runs, or does he attack with his spinners? I guess a bit of both. It will be interesting to observe how he goes about marshalling his attack tomorrow - and whether India will miss another bowler again. Can Kumble and Bhajji run through the England batting line up and give India a smallish target to chase?

Freddie will be tested like never before as captain. He is surprisingly ahead after 3 days - but does England have the courage and talent to go for the win? Do they have the firepower to get atleast 350 ahead by tomorrow, and then bowl India out in a day or lesser? Will he encourage his batsmen to attack? Whatever target he sets for India, will he back his bowlers to get 10 more Indian wickets on Day 5?

Fantastic Test cricket - any result is possible. More power to the bowlers, I say.