Monthly Archives: September 2007

Reaction, anticipation hallmarks of champions

September 9, 2007

I would like to thank Rajesh Lalwani for inspiring this piece

The Indian cricket team sent its die-hard fans on a roller-coaster ride in the first three one-day games against England while it looked being caught running on a treadmill towards the end of August. From a high of having won a Test series in England after 21 years, it seemed to have got stuck in a bit of a quagmire, what with its fielding standards hitting a low. But the crisis, if it can be called that, was relegated to the back-benches as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) faced a crisis with the Zee group’s Indian Cricket League emerging as a challenge to its monopoly status.
Its attempt to ignore the evolution of ICL was reminiscent of the proverbial ostrich and no B-school may ever recommend BCCI’s own peculiar standards and methods of crisis-management. B-schools may be focussing on the dilemma that brands like mobile phone giant Nokia and toy major Mattel faced around the same time as BCCI. Nokia recalled 46 million batteries worldwide while Mattel recalled 18 million toys from shelves in Asia. Ironically, both Mattel and China – which has some work to do to prevent the image of delivering low quality products in quest for cost control – should have known that the products didn’t deserve to get to markets that can be very unforgiving.
Be that as it may, even a cursory study of some sporting champions may be a learning experience for the corporate world. For, words like reaction and anticipation spring to mind when one thinks of how the best sporting achievers handle challenging situations in their respective spheres. Most sportspersons train hard to be able to react to the challenges posed by opponents and, in ball sports, by the ball.
The champions look like they are gifted with more time as they are almost always in a better position to deal with a situation because they have spent time honing their anticipation, so that they can foresee the movements of their rivals. The hallmark of these champions is their ability to change their game-plan at the very last moment so that they are not caught on the wrong foot Indeed, anticipation helps them quickens their response time. That is what let a Muhammad Ali or a John McEnroe or a Mark Waugh or a Diego Maradona look like a genius in the past. Indeed, that is the quality that has set sportsmen like Roger Federer and an Adam Gilchrist and sports women like Maria Sharapova apart from their challengers.
Each of these stars and their like buys extra time with anticipation and do not lose any by automating their responses. Let me give you an example. When leg-spinner Shane Warne visited India in his prime, he was expected to lead the Australian attack but India’s little big man Sachin Tendulkar had prepared his own repartee. Instead of waiting for Warne to start posing challenges in the 1997-98 series and then finding solutions to them, Tendulkar requisitioned the services of former India leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and a few other bowlers and got them to bowl on an artificially created rough patch before the series. When Warne was in with a chance of making his mark in the first Test, bowling from round the wicket and into the rough, Tendulkar launched a breathtaking assault. He deployed a unique slog sweep against the spin to help India build a match-winning lead. His assault caused the world’s greatest leg-spinner to confess later that he often went to bed having nightmares of Tendulkar just running down the wicket and belting him back over the head for six.
And when you swing your thoughts back to Nokia and Mattel, you wonder if they could have done better by anticipating the crises rather than wait for them to brew before reacting.

Natural guts, raw and taut

September 9, 2007
Anna Chakvetadze confessed to being sick of having to play Sania Mirza often but it is the Indian who is scratching her head in search of a route past the Russian. Her straight set loss in the third round of the US Open in New York – her fourth defeat in as many meetings with Chakvetadze this year – stopped Sania Mania from erupting as it did when she made it to the fourth round two years ago. With growing maturity, Sania is not thinking of the New York tournament as the end of the year in which she has done enough to climb to a career-high ranking of 27. She realises now more than ever that can not only break into the top 20 but also enjoy a lengthy stay. Aware that there are areas that she can turn in some work, the 20-year-old Hyderabadi is looking to stay fit and get better.
Sania and her father Imran Mirza believe that she would have broken into the top 30 at least four months earlier had it not been for the knee injury in March. “Any good fitness trainer could have helped her and [South African] Heath Matthews is a good trainer. But the big effort had to come from Sania and it’s remarkable that she was able to put in that focussed effort,” Imran says. “Fitness is definitely very important in helping Sania reach this new level. She has always been like that. Once she decides she wants something, she is willing to work her heart out to achieve that goal.” Sania reaped dividends in the hardcourt season for embracing a tough fitness regimen when recovering from the knee surgery.
Sania is also adding to her mental strength, especially when faced with tough situations. She turned the corner as it were with a victory over Akiko Morgiami in Stanford where she was down a set and a break down to be 1-4 and 3-5. “I am mentally tougher now than I ever was,” she says. “ I do not wait for my opponents to give me points by making errors. I would rather take them myself,” she says. The Hyderabadi also remembers taking on Israeli Shahar Peer in the opening round at San Diego last month. She took the court riding on confidence from her appearance in the final at Stanford the previous week. “She was a top 20 player but I didn’t believe I was going to lose, even after losing the second set,” recalls Sania, promising to continue her aggressive apporach.
There is no doubt that doubles play has contributed to the improvement in her singles game as well. It has definitely helped her improve her volleys, given her confidence and try out things that she has been working on. She has obviously enhanced the backhand and overhead strokes that were perceived as weaknesses before. Those have helped her get a measure of top 20 players in as many as four of the five matches this year but she has not been able to win any of her six meetings with top 10 players. Imran Mirza, doubling up as her coach, believes Sania needs to overcome some more weaknesses in her game before she is ready to mount a stiffer challenge against the top 10 players. “A lot of effort has to be put in,” he says when asked if some attention is being paid to ensure a more consistent first service. “Of course, work continues on the serve but there is improvement on that front as well. But the serve is always the most difficult to correct after the player has crossed age 16.”
There are a number a people who suggest that Sania will develop her game further if she has a travelling coach to help her. The Mirzas have tried partnerships with coaches as diverse as John Farrington, Australian legend Tony Roche. But those relationships have all been short-lived since Sania tends to rely on her father. “He (her father) has always been around since I was a kid and I think he obviously understands me on a personal level. We get along great and he’s very easy going. That helps because he is very relaxed before and after a match. He takes tennis only as a sport and I think that’s important. I always say ‘Never fix what’s not broken’. If and when I have a bad patch, maybe we can work on getting a coach.”
Of course, Spaniard Gabriel Urpi now coaches her but only on a part-time basis. He took up the consultant-coach’s role before the French Open this year and has spent enough time to be able to assess her game well. “I think Sania is someone who can improve a lot,” Urpi said. “When you look at some players, you you think ‘Okay I don’t know how much better she can get’. But, if you look at Sania’s game and age too, you realise that the margin to improve is very big. I think she has a great potential, quick acceleration and natural game is pretty good. She can improve in consistency, have better footwork and can do with a little more planning so that she can use her big weapons at the right time. Of course all this comes with hard work, and you are lucky with injuries and all other stuff. But working hard, is what makes you become a better player. And, above all, having fun is the best way to learn.”
Talking of learning, Sania has picked up lessons from the roller-coaster experience that saw her slip from being 31 in 2005 and rise this year to be ranked No. 27 now. “Ranking is only an indication of where you stand and is not foolproof data,” Imran says. “When she was 31 in 2005, I think she was lucky to be there, thanks to a couple of good runs and some luck of the draw. She was, in my opinion, playing top 70 tennis then. Today, she is playing top 30 tennis and is showing that she belongs there. However, tennis is a very competitive sport and if one follows all the top 100 players, one will realise that almost everyone – barring the top five – have ups and downs as far as ranking are concerned.”
The Chakvetadze conundrum may have left Sania scratching her head in search of an answer to getting past the Russian but the 20-year-old has her feet firmly planted on ground this time around. And, combined with her growing maturity, that will go a long way in ensuring that she enjoys her tennis over a longer stretch.

Nothing official about it!

September 9, 2007
By G Rajaraman
The world’s watching, fascinated by the developments in India’s domestic cricket. Not because the Board of Control for Cricket in India, intent on selling international cricket, has come up with innovative ideas to revitalise the game at home so that Team India would get more competitive. But because Zee group’s Indian Cricket League (ICL) gathered steam and caused emotions to run high. And you can be sure that the cricket world will track the scenario with growing interest as BCCI’s archaic, lethargic and monopolistic methods of running cricket have been challenged as never before and a promise that Indian cricket’s face would change dramatically in time to come.
“Go to hell,” BCCI President Sharad Pawar told reporters angrily, when he was pressed for a reaction to the ICL announcement of a list of 51 players. Rusty despite nearly eight decades of existence, BCCI reacted predictably. Instead of either talking to ICL or ignoring it altogether, BCCI retorted by sacking ICL Executive Board Chairman Kapil Dev as National Cricket Academy boss and severing relations with all those who had signed up with ICL. That led the impulsive former India captain to threaten to go on a hunger strike in protest against BCCI’s injustice against the ‘brave’ young players.
Clearly, the days when ICL would drag its feet in positioning itself as an alternative to BCCI are coming to an end. Thus far, it has portrayed itself as an alternative assembly line for players who could go on to play for India. But with the BCCI adopting a hardline stance, ICL may up the ante now. “How far will we go? I believe we will go the whole hog. BCCI is pushing us toward that, isn’t it? It has only taken negative action and not wanted to even talk to ICL,” said Kapil Dev.
Zee group Executive Vice-President Ashish Kaul was more guarded in articulating it but echoed such thoughts. “We will offer an alternative to the system of cricket management in this country. Of course, you must remember that it is not going to happen overnight but only over a period of time. We are taking a holistic approach that will not only offer alternatives to talent and talent management methods but also to the environment in which cricket is played, not the last being the infrastructure. Above all, though, we will involve cricketers as our partners.”
There has been some buzz that the players paraded in Bombay have all sold themselves cheap. “I think that the modern players are mature and sensible enough to know that they should not sign contracts without reading it. But like in any venture, there will be teething troubles and we will rectify anything that even seems anti-player,” said Kapil Dev, when asked if there was some mention in the contract about players having to lose pay if they were injured. For all its ills, BCCI does tend to take care of players who suffer injuries when doing duty for India. Besides, BCCI also offers the players a share in its profits while ICL does not mention such a bonus for players. “We shall share profits only we make any money. Right now we are only in the investment stage,” said Kaul.
Indeed, not everyone is convinced that ICL has shaken the BCCI establishment. For someone who has interestedly watched the idea grow, former India cricketer Ajay Jadeja is not convinced that ICL has positioned itself well. “It is the best thing to have happened to Indian cricket but it seems to view its own cricket as an inferior product to BCCI’s. In a competitive market, you have to market a product that is superior to say even India-Pakistan matches. One of ICL’s USPs would be that it could be competitive cricket without regional boundaries like the English Premier League football or NBA basketball. I don’t think that ICL recognises that yet.”
Jadeja also did not see much sense in arguing that ICL would serve as a platform from which BCCI could choose players for its Test, one-day and Twenty20 teams. “How is that possible, given that the ICL expects to keep its players busy for eight and a half months? They would have precious little time to play Ranji Trophy or any of the BCCI tournaments and thus been unavailable for selection in any case. BCCI walked into the ICL trap by banning players and stopping financial benefits already earned by them.”
It is this aspect that ICL is feeding on at this moment. “A democratic body is behaving in a dictatorial fashion,” said Kapil Dev, the man voted as the nation’s greatest cricketer of the previous century. “With its mulish refusal to talk to ICL, BCCI has been helping us grow bigger. If it is controlling cricket in India, it must be talking to anyone who is working for the improvement of Indian cricket. I am not upset about being removed as National Cricket Academy Chairman but because the BCCI does not seem to have the courage and the confidence to even talk to ICL that was not as big when I joined it as Executive Board Chairman.” The irony would not have been lost on anyone who knows that BCCI did not encash a Rs 250-crore bank guarantee from the Zee group before the latter pulled out of a deal with the Board.
It may be early days yet but we have seen only a high emotional quotient and much sabre-rattling. ICL has not yet unveiled any specific plans to improve cricket in India. Many would have expected ICL to at least name the six teams for its maiden venture, their coaches and captains but that was not to be. The only thing sure is that the men chosen and paraded before the media in Bombay earlier this week would attend a camp in Madras from August 30. The big fish are some distance away from being signed by ICL but it does seem an idea with potential to change the face of Indian cricket over time. The world’s watching, getting ready to be fascinated by the unfolding developments, not the least being Kapil Dev’s passionate threat to go on a hunger strike if the BCCI went ahead and kept the ICL players away from its firmament.

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