Money for nothing and checks for free!

"Money for nothing and chicks for free" - crooned Mark Knopfler in 1985, to express his views on the music industry. With a single syllable change, it applies to the Indian Premier League (IPL), the newly conceived 20/20 cricket league set up in a franchise structure like the soccer leagues in Europe or the sports leagues in the US.

While the IPL might turn out to be the most defining development to happen to cricket since the Packer saga in 1978, and might take the salaries of players to be on par with those of soccer stars and NFL superstars, yet, when players like Manoj Tiwary, whom I saw in a recent game in Australia and wondered how he even got selected, and Ishant sharma, who despite being the star of the Australian tour was a virtual unknown a couple of months ago, fetched $675,000 and almost $1 MM respectively, the deal seems to have more holes than a sieve.

True that when business tycoons like Vijay Mallya, Ness Wadia, and Mukesh Ambani are rubbing wallets with Bollywoood stars like Preity Zinta and Shah Rukh Khan, there are bound to be excesses. After all, isn't this the marriage between the two biggest passions of a billion Indians - Cricket and Bollywood?.

Let's take a look behind all the glitter and analyze if there is gold.

First and foremost factor in the success of a venture is the product, in this case 20/20 cricket. There is no doubt that it is exciting and probably the best suited version to really bring people to the stadiums and have fun after a hard day's work. But beyond an exciting and serendipitously successful World Cup, there isn't a proof that the version is worth the millions of $$ in bets that are being placed - huge risk with uncertain return - an investment that would make me look like Ford betting on the Edsel.

Secondly, the HR, in this case cricketers, are an impressive lot - established players and upcoming ones with its share of have-beens; overall some of the best players in the World are on display.

Thirdly, the cost of hiring these cricketers - a mind boggling $633 MM - is where the logic behind all this looks as thin as soup in a college mess. Given that the people and the companies involved in the league are some of the biggest in the country and are proven winners this is definitely not a joke. One look at the salaries and more importantly the $$/hour, which is astronomical, it reveals the lack of common sense. E.g., M.S. Dhoni is expected to earn $1500/hour, which according to The Economic Times was higher than what Mukesh Ambani, ironically one of the team owners, earns. Then there are other operating costs that need to be taken into account like those of marketing, support staff, travel etc., that will ultimately make the figure fatter than the priest at my wedding.

I am a great believer in creating a market before creating a product and more importantly earning a few cents before betting millions. The IPL fails on both counts.

Hopefully the IPL will not suffer the same fate as that of the Indian stock market in April 1992, when blinded bullishness brought about the fall of many a millionaire, and Lalit Modi, the brain behind the IPL, will do better than Harshad Mehta.

Right to Click

Rock star Mick Jagger once signed his autograph with an expletive, aggrieved that one day the recipient might make a profit from auctioning it without paying him a royalty. Years later he concluded that it was only fair if others made money from his name; after all, he had made millions out of it himself.

Maybe cricket administrators need to think the same way.

The latest move by the Australian Cricket Board to demand a fee from news agencies to cover the games and publish photographs is a classic case of "if-you-make-money-because-of-me-I-need-a-share". While a commission based system might work for TV broadcasting rights, it will not do so for news media. An analogy would be the NYSE charging the Wall Street Journal for publishing stock quotes or market updates. Royalty in the media is most definitely a No.

While such mercenary ideas usually originate from the BCCI and its bean-counting coterie, the Aussies have proven that they are not far behind in this regard. Unfortunately, while every such move by the BCCI has been widely criticized by the cricket pundits, the current crisis in Australia has hardly evoked a response from the pen-wielding experts, especially since it concerns the media. Surprising yet understandable, since all things Aussie are usually revered in Cricket.

Marketing is the key to any event and sport is no exception. By alienating the media the game might be deprived of its primary vehicle to reach to the masses. Sport and media share a symbiotic relationship where one cannot survive without the other and the administrators must realize that they are already the recipient of free marketing through newspaper coverage and the media is paying them through increased ticket sales. Hence charging them for coverage is definitely double-dipping.

Also, if newspapers start paying for the sporting event that they are covering they might want to play a role in influencing its outcome too, much like in Irving Wallace's The Almighty. After all they will then have become investing stakeholders and might rightfully want games to end the way that their returns are maximized. This will be a clear throwback to the doldrums that the game found itself in with the match-fixing allegations in the late 90s.

Sports and its organizations need to make money but they might be better off doing so with better quality of games and increased market share rather than resort to such ludicrousness. On the lighter side, they could at least be creative and subtle about their motives, like Shaq, who once said - "I'm tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi and wear Reebok"

How to name it?

Naming cricketing trophies after two greats from the respective countries has become a fad over the last few years. Australia plays India for the Border-Gavaskar trophy and their trans-Tasman rivals for the Chappell-Hadlee trophy (Don't ask me which Chappell and Hadlee, as I can remember at least 3 of each kind donning their national colors). Sri Lanka and Australia recently realized that they didn't know what they were playing for and decided to name their trophy after their two most popular (controversial?) cricketers. A little northwest of there, bitter rivals battle it out for an anonymous trophy, while one of them faces an emergency in their country. Some battles are definitely more interesting and important than a constitutional emergency. (Will the cricketers end up spending a month in the Mumbai Airport a la Tom Hanks in The Terminal?).

Isn't it high time that the rivalry that arouses the most extreme of emotions in the game got a name for its battles. Even the most one sided of them all has one. Yeah, I meant The Ashes.

Let's think through the various combinations of names that could rightfully adorn a trophy of this stature.

1. Imran - Kapil: two of the greatest all rounders ever and world cup winning captains.
2. Qadir - Kumble: two great tweakers, one who kept the art alive amidst towering fast bowlers in the 80s and the other who took all 10 pins down in a bowl.
3. I could be tongue in cheek and call it Manmohan - Musharraf trophy; after all what is cricket in these countries without politics. But then you will have to rechristen it every now and then to reflect the volatility of the governments.
4. Talking of politics, a political way of settling it could be calling it the Kashmir trophy - didn't Imran Khan once openly suggest that the Kashmir issue should be settled over a game of cricket, knowing fully well that for the best past of the 80's and 90's Pakistan had a much superior team.
5. A dark horse could be Khushwant Singh- Zia ul Haq for their contribution to numerous "sardarji" jokes in their respective countries.

I could think of numerous such pairs, for cricketing or humorous reasons, but if there was one moment that turned India-Pakistan cricket by its head- it wasn't Kumble's perfect 10, wasn't Imran or Kapil's exploits with the red cherry, wasn't Sachin's towering six over point off Shoaib Akhtar or the latter's twin strikes at Kolkatta - it has to be Miandad's last ball six off ChetanSharma at Sharjah . That moment marked the dominance of Pakistan in Indo-Pak encounters for nearly a decade and a half until India became more competent - India just couldn't recover from that momentary lapse of reason. More importantly, the two sides graduated from playing out dull draws to dishing out edge of the seat nail biters - a trend that has continued on till the recent 20/20 WC final. For the sheer impact of the moment on the rest of the games between the countries, the trophy should be named the Chetan - Miandad trophy.

Nevertheless, I am pretty sure that at least in the near future, the trophy will continue to be named after Pepsi or Samsung or whoever the sponsor is since neither board cares beyond what the sponsors bring to the game - money.

Fast and Furious...

...two adjectives that would aptly describe the recently concluded 20/20 Cricket World Cup. Some might say "too fast, too furious", but I think the speed was just about right. This was the best cricket tournament since '99 World Cup - the last such one where at least 2 other teams (SA & Pak) were as good as the Aussies before the men in gold and green surged ahead to leave the rest of the world languishing in doldrums.

It is a common business transformation strategy to change a company's focus from its products and revenue to its consumers and many leading companies have turned around losing businesses by successfully implementing it. Cricket over the last 10 years had become a game run by lawyers/politicians for lawyers/politicians with focus on its product (ODIs) and revenue (broadcasting revenue). Along the way the needs and pulse of the consumer was forgotten. While on the verge of alienating the fans from the game, serendipitously or not, the ICC has just implemented one such successful transformation.

Despite numerous experts questioning the purity of the concept (Articles 1, 2 & 3), I am convinced that the game has received the perfect dose of caffeine to keep it going. While it definitely doesn't tamper with the purity and position of the more pristine form of the game that is test cricket, it certainly marks the beginning of the end of the 50 over game and nothing highlighted that more than the contrasting nature of the two world cups staged over the last 6 months - one whose winner was obvious 4 years before it started and the other whose winner was unknown until the last 4 balls were bowled!

While the purists correctly argue that test cricket is the true test of skills, truly close contests of the highest quality are too far and few in between to attract anyone but purists to the game. Over the last 10 years there have been only 2 mindblowing test series (Aus vs. India 2001 & Aus vs. Eng 2005) to satisfy the non-purist. Steve Waugh and his fearless Aussies revolutionized the game by scoring at an unheard of rate of 4 an over in tests, but few other teams could consistently match them to make things interesting. Arguably, the shorter version levels the field for a more even contest where ephemeral brilliance rather than sustained genius is sufficient to win games. But in doing so, it has unearthed the the key to closer contests and tighter finishes that has become a rarity in the game. Also, the average cricket fan does not have 5 days to watch the game in stadiums and appreciate the purity of the game. He prefers the luxury of Cricinfo to give him the executive summary. 20/20 has truly brought the fan back to the grounds.

And finally, to critics who site that the version may not produce a Sachin or a Lara, the counter argument is that Sachins and Laras are supreme talents that will show up and shine irrespective of the format of the game. It might be worthwhile to remember that SRT first announced his talent to the cricket world by taking the life out of Abdul Qadir (described by none other than Viv Richards as the toughest bowler he had faced) in an exhibition match in Pakistan before he went on to greater deeds and bigger stages. Hence the argument is moot.

Twenty Twenty is victory for the cricket consumer and hence I rest my case!

Criticism of Greatness

Is imitation the highest form of flattery? I think criticism is an equally exalted form and it seems to be the more attractive option when it comes to journalism.

I read two articles yesterday, one from The Guardian and the other from The Telegraph and I was surprised to find that the central topic of debate in both articles is the same - Tendulkar, his failure at Lords and the loss of his once brilliant armory of strokes, apparently replaced by a fear of the short ball and failure in general.

Interestingly both articles use success at Lord's as a measure of greatness, a huge flaw considering the fact that the single most stellar batting performance at Lord's is by a batsman, definitely not considered to be amongst the cream of all time greats (333 and 123 against India in 1990 by Graham Gooch). The last Indian name to make it to the Lords honors board is the person so affectionately named "Bombay Duck" and "Olympic Rings" (in honor of his 5 consecutive ducks against Australia) and I can bet the last dollar in my wallet that Ajit Agarkar will not feature in your all time cricketing XI. Also, given the number of grounds Sachin has played in, there are bound to be ones where he has a bad average; he averages a monumental 249 runs at Sydney, which certainly highlights the triviality of the argument.

The article in the Telegraph points to Sachin's meticulous preparation before a series as an evidence of his fear of failure. I find it amusing that, ironically, both articles also refer to the preparation that the genius made in 1998 to counter Shane Warne's bowling around the wicket and the 155 n.o that resulted out of it (an innings that I had the fortune of witnessing live from the pavilion at Chepauk courtesy of an umpire cousin). To me, what is evident is the will to succeed and not the fear of failure. I still remember watching the game and listening to Ian Chappell on the microphone pointing out to the moment when Warne came around the wicket for the first time in the match as the turning point. Sachin slightly opened up his stance, marched down the wicket and majestically lofted the first ball over midwicket for a six, dictating the tone for that series, at the end of which the spin wizard proudly admitted to having nightmares of Sachin dancing down the pitch. Admiration, it seems, is an even greater form of flattery.

Though the author correctly notes the decline in Sachin's game by referring to the fact that in the last three years, Sachin has scored only one century against a notable opponent (Sri Lanka), he fails to mention that the period was interspersed by serious injuries, often limiting his participation to one or two games followed by a long layoff. Every great sportsman goes through a patch of mediocrity but they often bounce back with minor technical changes to the surprise of the world. Tiger Woods did that by changing his swing a couple of years ago after a 3-year lean period. Whether Sachin follows suit - only time will tell.

Finally, whether Sachin Tendulkar scores a test hundred at Lords or not, whether he is addressed "Sir Sachin" in the near future or not, his greatness has diminished or not, is immaterial; I and more than a billion others will always remember the man as an entertainer par excellence, who gave good value for their time and money.