Dhoni's Silence - Why We Must Care!

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s silence has intrigued us, piqued us. The match fixing allegations in the IPL, his association with some big shots, stake in Rhiti sports, India Cements and other firms – we’ve become increasingly inquisitive about the off-field life of arguably India’s most prolific cricket captain. After all, Indian cricket fans deserve answers, right? Answers to questions about how he is making money; whether he was indeed involved in match fixing during the IPL... the media and common man want his silence broken. We deserve answers, right? Do we?

Dhoni has always maintained a low profile in front of the media, be it his private life or on field strategies. He has channelized his energy towards more productive aspects – like having a major say in the team’s selection, motivating his player and developing a messianic sense of purpose in them, and chalking out elaborate game plans to surprise opponents. Ever wondered why his seemingly lucky moves pay off brilliantly? Those ‘lucky’ gambles have been thought through in his head over and over again. Leaders make Plans A and B. Dhoni says “I don’t stop at just plan B. I go on to make plans C, D and E.” True mastermind. Real genius. And the best finisher in cricket today.

MSD is the only captain to have won every tournament which has the ICC label. He has marshalled his troops to victory in Australia, England, Pakistan, West Indies, Sri Lanka, South Africa – everywhere. Yuvraj, Gambhir, Ashwin, Jadeja, the Sharmas, Dhawan, Raina, Kohli, Shami, Bhuvaneshvar Kumar and others have flourished under his wings. They’re all match winners on their own.

Why is Dhoni's silence so important?

And yet we choose to dismiss all that. We chastise his money making methods through business. We accuse him of being guilty because, as always, he has maintained a stoic silence on the match fixing allegations. Does his being silent indicate he is guilty? And what is wrong in him using his genius mind in business to make money? Is it wrong to insure your future? Have we also forgotten that we have never demanded that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi come clean on terrible allegations made against them? Why this appalling treatment towards Dhoni?

As a country which loves cricket, our job is to support the Indian Cricket Team. That is the logical thing to do. But it’s well known how good we Indians are at applying logic. This unity in diversity hogwash has fucked things up for us. We care more about a player’s performance in the IPL (for our cities) than his performance at the international level. That’s why we swarm to stadiums in herds to watch the IPL. We abuse them if they underperform in these inconsequential matches. And if they perform well but are exhausted due to the gruelling schedule, we accuse them of caring only about money. Yes, we Indians are really smart indeed!

The media and common man should rally around Dhoni and his boys to win the World T20 championship right now. Calling for the captain’s head while he carries the expectations of 100 crore Indians is nothing short of retarded. It’s a shame that we accuse him without proof while he marches on to conquer let another milestone for us. It’s time to ensure that the most important thing is to let the important things stay important and to stop sweating about matters of no consequence. The IPL is nothing but a money making scheme for some people. Dhoni hasn't been bought by us neither do we pay him a salary. He has made the Indian cricket team one of the most powerful forces to reckon with in the world today. He owes us nothing. Not the truth, not the lies and definitely not the finer aspects of his life.

So please go and find yourselves something else to rant about. Like maybe who should be in the next Big Boss episode, who’s performance was awesome at some Cine Star awards, etc. And if you can’t appreciate Dhoni’s talent, at least leave him alone.

image Courtesy: Google Images

What the IPL is Doing For Indian Cricket

The IPL auction is over. Yuvraj Singh received the highest bid worth 14 crores. We are delighted with some players’ addition to our IPL teams. Lalit Modi is still screaming hoarse about match fixing. The media (and most naïve people) are busy accusing Dhoni of match fixing allegations. Amidst all this, we gear up for the biggest entertainment bonanza of the year while the Indian cricket team continues to perform dismally abroad.

Accept it! The Indian Premier League (IPL) has ruined Indian cricket. Players don’t care how they perform at the international level anymore as long as they earn big bucks while playing for the IPL. They lack patience to ply test cricket, the resilience to slug it out with tough teams abroad and the strategy to come up trumps after 5 grueling days.

Who can blame them? Even they have mouths to feed. A secure future (one with lots of money) is always preferred to an insecure one. But this secure future is also killing uncapped players’ drive to play for the country.

Well, what about us? What about common man? We spend hours watching the IPL auction live (perhaps even reruns of it), tweet frantically, spend hours discussing it and calling the team owners all sorts of things for paying too much to pick a player or losing out on a good one. And then we complain about the amount of money being splurged. Hypocrisy! And we argue about how a player from CSK is involved in match fixing, regardless of no evidence present. Who gives a damn about him being the captain of the Indian cricket team, right?

Then the IPL begins. We claim that the IPL is not real cricket, a waste of time, a display of money by the rich and everything that is evil about society. Yet we are hooked. We watch matches on the tube, internet and in stadiums as if life depended upon it. We boo Virat Kohli when he plays for Bangalore while forgetting, as he said, that “apart from playing for RCB, I play for India.” Mumbaikars support Kieron Pollard over MSD because the former plays for Mumbai Indians. Awesome!

All this while the Indian cricket team continues to underperform. Obviously fatigue sets in. We will keep saying that the players’ motivation is just money, but it is because we are paying them… we hype the IPL to unimaginable heights. Manoranjan ka baap, right? And we completely expose our players to cricketers from across the globe, exposing their strengths and weaknesses. And then we wonder why other teams are so effective and India is not.

So before blaming Indian cricketers for not performing, look at the reasons. You are just as responsible for our international team’s dismal performance. If you care about India like you claim, stop caring about which player plays for your IPL team. Support him if he plays for India instead of snubbing him if he’s performed well against your city’s IPL team. Y’all are not children. So act your age. Think like a mature person instead of happily feeding on the media and being fooled. It’s time you stopped deciding players’ capabilities based on their IPL performances. It’s time our players stop wasting time and energy training for and playing in the IPL. They are humans just like you and me. I've given up on the IPL 3 seasons ago. Time for you to see the light too... and no, it's not a freight train coming your way.

Thank You Sachin

I've worshipped you for 17 years... Whatever I say isn't enough. So just like the 100 crore Indians out there,  all I can say is

THANK YOU SACHIN

Sachin Tendulkar - The Legend... The God... Never Say Goodbye

The ICC Champions Trophy 2013 Winners

This post is dedicated to my favourite team – the Indian Cricket Team. It’s come late; a week after they’ve won the Champions Trophy 2013. India is now the only team to have won the 20, 50, and 60 Over World Cups and the Champions Trophy. The only team that can match them is West Indies, but them winning the 50 over World Cup in the near future looks farfetched.

This trophy is even sweeter because of the lack of big names. The big 3 (Sachin, Sourav, Dravid), Zaheer, Kumble, Yuvraj, Sehwag, Gambhir... no one was part of the team. Yet it went on not only to win the Champions Trophy, but stay undefeated throughout (7-0). Remember when the Aussies started sliding downhill? When they lost McGrath, Warne, the Waugh brothers, Gilchrist, Hayden, Fleming and others.

Until a few days before the tourney started, the Indian media was busy slamming Dhoni for holding a stake in some firm. Match fixing allegations had surfaced in the IPL, and while everyone sympathized with Dravid, they chastised Dhoni and said his team should be disqualified. We conveniently forgot that he captained our team to the 1^st ODI series victory in Australia after almost 2 decades, the T20 World Cup victory, whitewashing the Aussies 4-0 at home (which was the last team that achieved it?), the Asia Cup and many other victories.

India - The ICC Champions Trophy 2013 winners

The Aussie and British media are die-hard supporters of their teams. We, on the other hand, are never satisfied. If India loses, that’s how we always play. If India wins, the match was fixed. Plus the media comes out with stories completely unrelated to cricket bashing its own players. And we lap it up like gluttons. Dhoni’s stake becomes the point of discussion in trains, on lunch tables, Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else. We care more about the IPL than the Indian cricket team. Come on guys... use your brains. Where do your loyalties lie? With your national cricket team (all of whom are Indians) or with your IPL team, ½ the side of which comprises of foreigners?

The media now is glorifying Dhoni. He’s on the front page of most papers. They’re publicizing how he built his biceps on a litre of milk every day. Suddenly Dhoni is God, while he was the Devil some days ago. Convenient? We lapped up their shit a few days ago. We’re lapping up their bullshit even now. Guess who’s the fool here?

We’re euphoric because the Indian team has won the Champions Trophy. But this feeling won’t last long. One mediocre series and we’ll be screaming for heads of our players again. Our memories of their bad performances outlast the good ones.

Dear fans, our team has achieved so much in the last ½ decade. All this while they’re on the road the most. They are humans too. They suffer from fatigue, homesickness; they miss their loved ones, monotony sets in... the list can go on. Please cut them some slack. The next time they have an average series remember all the good they’ve done. And for God’s sake, stop caring about how a cricketer does business. Their personal life is none of our concern. We must care about what they do on the field, and they are doing a fabulous job right now. Jai Hind.

The Indian Cricket Team: Familiarity Breeds Predictability

The Indian cricket team lost the One Day series 2-1 to Pakistan and the Test Series 2-1 to England. They tied the T20 series 1-1 with each team. They lost all matches against England & Australia when they visited those countries. We can’t remember the last time the Indian team won a series comprehensively after the World Cup. This team is just a pale shadow of the one that won the World Cup and probably one of the worst title defenders, right?

We could go on and on. But one thing to factor is the amount of time the Indian team has spent on the road. Before the World Cup in 2011, India was constantly playing since November 2009. New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Sri Lanka, West Indies and other countries were toured, apart from the series of matches played at home. Injuries, fatigue, loss of form and frustration become a norm at such times. And knowing how much the BCCI cares about these aspects, combating them becomes very difficult. Most people say these are mere excuses, but it’s important they put themselves in the players’ shoes.

The dejected Indian cricket team

Let’s look at the time after the World Cup. India had a small break before they toured West Indies and then left for England. Something went wrong and we lost all matches there. That’s ok occasionally; even Australia lost both test matches, the ODI and T20 when they came to India. Then we began castrating our heroes; the very players who won us the World Cup. Everything they had done was suddenly washed away and we were back to calling them ‘incompetent’. The disaster at Australia and other places followed. Forgotten were the facts that this team had won us the Asia Cup crown in 2010 also.

The Indian team isn’t going through a good patch now either. Expected to win 3-0 in the test series against England, we lost 2-1. To add to that, we lost the ODI series to Pakistan also. But have we wondered why? It’s because of familiarity. The Indian cricket team plays maximum matches every year. Mini series are squeezed in between tours. Players are always on the road and barely have time to relax, recoup from niggling injuries (most Indian players play at 60% fitness), or add new weapons to their arsenal. Consequently, they become predictable. The same batting strokes, same bowling variations, same bowling options, etc. Oppositions are so familiar with the Indian team because of the amount of videos that must be available to study that they’ve dissected our team like a frog in a biology lab. They’ve broken down each batsman, bowler, fielder and probably know them better than our players themselves. That’s why Ashwin is being taken to the cleaners while Bhuvaneswar Kumar is successful; he’s relatively unknown. But I guess Kumar will go down a similar path of most Indian fast bowlers – dream debut, awesome performance for some time and then injuries and lack of infrastructure will make him toothless too.

The seniors need to be rested, but the BCCI won’t take that step because it will mean loss of revenue for the richest sporting body in the world. New blood should be given a chance and our calendar should become less gruelling. These aspects have been argued over rhetorically for ages now without any outcome. So we must understand where our players are coming from rather than being so harsh on them. Until the BCCI doesn’t take steps to correct this, or until our players don’t stand up for themselves the way they did before the Sydney Test, all we will see from our team is spurts of brilliance. We must ensure they have our support, not our criticism. Do you agree?

Image Courtesy: Google Images

When the Stakes Are High...

Ever seen certain people perform when the plenty hangs on the results? Or have you tried concentrating on an activity knowing that the the outcome depends heavily on you and will impact many others? Tried riding/driving when you had to get to some place urgently? Watched a race where a driver tries real hard to pass someone in front, makes a move and ends up throwing away all his hard work? Ever wonder why we mess up when it matters most?

Yerkes and Dodson had conducted an experiment on rats in the early 1900s (one that will not please animal activists). It involved leaving a rat in a caged maze. When the rats would go through an incorrect door, they would get a slight shock. Those slight shocks would make the rats simply motor along to find the right door. The scientists thought if they upped the level of shock, the rats would be motivated to learn faster. But the results proved otherwise. When the level of shock was very high, the rats couldn’t concentrate! They lost the ability to think straight and find patterns. The high level of shock was just too high for the rats to focus on anything because of fear. They had lots of trouble remembering which parts of the cage were safe and were unable to find the exit. Yerkes and Dodson called this the Inverted – U principle. It states that the performance of an individual, beyond a level, starts dropping as the level of stimulus increases.

Yerkes & Dodson's Inverted-U Theory

We humans react in a similar manner when the stakes are high. Senior bosses, who are offered obscene salaries and bonuses, are forever under pressure to perform. They want to justify their salaries so bad that they start making bad decisions, decisions which to a rank outsider vary from silly to downright dumb. Or they resort to unethical schemes to spike up performance momentarily. When we work very hard on something where the stakes are high, we concentrate on what the outcome MUST BE! No slip up, no mistake; we must not screw up anywhere or the consequences will be severe. In those moments, we lose concentration. We lose our skill, our competence. This negative motivation works against us. Share traders, CEOs, racers; this rule of thumb applies to everyone! Does this apply in sex too? Experienced people can provide some insights ;)

I’ve ridden/driven like a maniac when I’ve been in a real hurry; where I thought a second’s delay would prove fatal. The result? I’ve reached 5 – 7 minutes before the time I took when I cruised along. On the other hand, when I ride fast with a free mind, there have been instances when I’ve halved the time taken (same destination, same amount of traffic). Shows that a free mind amplifies your performance while a heavily burdened one restricts it (imagine, when you need it most).

Lord Krishna, in the Bhagwad Gita, says “Focus on the outcome, not the action.” Makes sense. The only catch is it’s hard to implement. Employees work too hard to appease their bosses rather than focusing on the task at hand, software engineers work at double the pace to complete a deadline, etc... and the result? You get the point, right? There’s always a next time. One slip up is not the end of the world. This is a lesson for managers too. Don’t burden your employees with too much or try to motivate them with too much responsibility... it often backfires.

This rule may be somewhat contrary to what successful entrepreneurs go through in the initial phases. The most successful ones have gone been through times when they’ve had to succeed or their families would be on the road. But there has to be some part of this rule that has applied to them. Some part of life where they’ve worked without thinking about the outcome which has led them to where they are. The best performers (Sachin Tendulkar, Rafael Nadal... you can add any name you want...) don't worry about the consequences. They excel at their work and leave the outcome to God.

Thus, dear friends, we work better when we don’t inflate the stakes and not vice versa. Too much motivation is not good for any living being. Aamir Khan said in 3 Idiots “Don’t focus on success. Focus on excellence, and success will follow.” Let’s try making that a way of life. Let’s focus on doing a really good job of the task at hand. Try following this principle and tell me if it works. Cheers!

How Emotional Are We Humans Really?

I was reflecting on the Sharad Pawar slapgate incident. Now, this is not the 1^st time he’s been ill treated in public. Do we remember the ICC Champions Trophy some years ago when the Australian Cricket Team pushed Pawar off stage in public? He laughed off the ICC CT incident. A lot of us were outraged at that incident, but were delighted slapgate occured. Now while we despise Sharad Pawar, a lot of us secretly want to be like him to a small extent. We do not want act unethically, but we have to doff our hats to the guy who has his fingers in almost every business in the country (and a lot outside also).

Sharad Pawar slapgate

The differentiator, dear reader, is emotion. Ever noticed how we humans get carried away by something that delights or infuriates us? We’re either over the moon celebrating or up in arms dropping everything else. We have witnessed numerous instances of people taking to the streets, burning effigies and holding demonstrations for bad performances by cricket teams, players not being picked, poor umpiring, etc. Sharad Pawar’s minions and sycophants conducted such protests when slapgate occurred (surprised they didn’t go to Australia and protest the team’s behaviour towards Pawar saaheb), but did we see Pawar even bat an eyelid?  Richard Thaler, in his book NUDGE, states that very few humans respond to incentive while making a decision, while most of us react emotionally. James Brauer, in an excellent article here, says that the best way to have our idea shared is to appeal emotionally to the audience. Often, he says, people share content if they have emotionally connected with it. The best marketers manage to have their products sold by connecting emotionally with their target groups. So that means that we focus less on actual matter and more on emotional appeal. I wonder, is that how it should really be?

Cheers India... 5 - 0

Did we really whitewash the Englishmen 5 – 0? You can bet everything you have we did! And we thumped them, mauled them, butchered them... you can put in all the verbs you want! We ran through their entire batting line up in 4 out of the 5 matches. Those 4 matches ended up being totally one – sided; only one match was closely fought viś –a – viś 2 matches when India were in England.

India were still missing their big guns. We were without, amongst others, Tendulkar, Sehwag, Zaheer, Ishant and Yuvraj. The average age of the team was 24. Quite a few youngsters debuted in this series. Gambhir was batting one down instead of his regulation opening slot. Mind you, all this with the British team at almost full strength. However, performances stood out in all aspects of the game; batting, bowling & fielding. Praveen Kumar batted for the 1^st time in the series in the 5^th ODI. Kohli, Gambhir, Dhoni, Jadeja, Raina and others were in sublime form. Aaron, Umesh Yadav, Vinay Kumar bowled with real pace (in the 140s) and successfully troubled a lot of English batsmen. Ashwin and Jadeja not only tied down the Englishmen with their spin, but also were some key contributors in picking up wickets. The fielding was one par excellence. Tiwary, Jadeja, Raina, Kohli led the way and all others (including the Indian bowlers) followed suit.

The team must have been under enormous pressure before this series. India had badly suffered at the hands of the same opposition a month ago and were still missing their big guns. The youngsters surely wanted to prove themselves. Many Indians were under fire; Dhoni for his captaincy, Raina for his batting, the bowling and fielding had been criticized. But none of that showed in the matches. Dhoni was the shrewd, nonchalant captain that he has always been. His mental toughness was commendable and rubbed off on all players and they delivered. He marshalled his troops beautifully in batting and bowling. The Brits were dismissed twice for below 200 and only once did they manage to score above 250. The English bowlers could not bowl the Indians out in even one match.

India showed why they deserve the World Champions crown. Many may argue that the team is a lion at home, but the same applies to England and Australia too, doesn’t it? How many teams have been able to beat India in our den? We salute you, dear Indian cricketers. You have been sensational, nothing short! We’re sure you will continue to give your best on the field.  We look forward to similar performances when you go overseas also. We will never lose faith in you. For us, you are INVINCIBLE! Thanks for this awesome Diwali gift. Happy Diwali everyone.