The end is nigh

Is the curtain coming down on a great career? Tendulkar will not walk away after this bitter defeat, but he is losing his grip on the new intolerant India.

'Sachin needs to make sure he is playing the game for the right reasons' a former cricketing great recently chirped.

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow
from Monty Python - The life of Brian

A laughing we will go

The BCCI gets Rs 400 cr....Amen! It just keeps gettin' better!
Read more here

Rediff iland

I do also cross post sometimes on rediff.

The best Skip we never had!

What Indian cricket needs today is a Ravi Shastri to lead the side' - Ian Chappell.

Does Ian see a little of himself in Ravi?

Was he the best captain we never had? Like Warne for Australia!
RSJ Shastri will be remembered for his bloody-mindedness and ability to maximise the talent that he possessed. Hard as nails in keeping with the old Mumbai tradition, he gave no quarter, and asked for none.

Do we have another Ravi Shastri out there somewhere?

Process?

Who better than Narayan Murthy to talk about process. Atleast his credibility is not in doubt.Read the entire article here

Just to add my 2 bit, building a team is a painful and long process , Chappell has been with the team only 18 months. Common sense will tell us that it takes a much much longer time to rebuild.

In the event of an upset!!!

An absolutely awesome post by Karthik on how the sponsors and broadcasters can preserve their interests in the current world cup. While not possible atleast in this tournament it still makes good reading. I have reproduced the original post here. Click here to see the original post

The Format

When the organizing committee of the Cricket World Cup (CWC2007) came up with the present format, it was hailed by one and all. “We give a chance to the minnows, polish them off and have a proper world cup in the 92 format among the 8 major teams”, they said. Most people nodded. One thing, however, that people didn’t reckon was about the impact of an upset.

The pair of yesterday’s upsets has created havoc in the world cup schedule. Ireland are most probably through to the super eight, and Bangladesh will also be fancying their chances. However, it is unlikely that the minnows can consistently sustain their form, and this means that their games in the super eight will be rendered useless. Another upset, and England’s poor form could actually render the whole super eight exercise to a sham!

The Value of an Upset

The financial value of an upset is huge. If (god forbid) India fail to qualify for the super eight, Sony Entertainment Television (already smarting under the feed sharing ordinance and late night matches) stands to lose a huge amount of money in terms of advertising revenue. This would be an utterly crippling blow to the bouquet of channels, something it will take a long time to recover from.

Inzy’s head is set to roll. He is most likely to be stripped off captaincy. There will be large scale changes in the Pakistan team. With Pakistan being Pakistan, some team members might actually be Escobared. The same is likely to be repeated in India if we could see some similar scenes here (no Escobar, though).

Then, most of the team members are brand ambassadors of various brands. These brands are likely to lose heavily thanks to the exit. Carefully crafted advertising campaigns will come to nought. Then, there are a large number of firms who rely on events such as the World Cup to boost sales. Offers are already flooding the market from various durable manufacturers, especially television. All these will come a cropper, with the hardest hit probably being Tata SKY.

The impact of the upset will not be restricted to the upset countries alone. With a large number of super eight matches turning meaningless, gate receipts (which are already not much) will dwindle. In-stadia advertising will decline. If they have already been sold, the people who currently hold the rights stand to lose.

People who were planning to Caribbean to watch the super eight might now suddenly cancel their plans, with their favorite teams out of the world cup. Tourism in the islands (which has already been hit thanks to a hefty visa fee) will be hit further. There are already heavy protests that they impoverished governments have spent too much for the World Cup. The protests will increase, and we might see a few Caribbean governments falling.

Clearly, the total costs of an upset are huge. Enormous.

It is amazing that the organizers never took into account an upset and the huge costs the current format brings to the various stakeholders. The committee should’ve devised a format where the odd upset wouldn’t have had a major impact on the tournament so early (like Zimbabwe beating India in 1999).

That said and done, nothing much can be done now. The format has been fixed and the upsets have been made. Still there is a ray of hope. Can’t the losers from the upset compensate the winner and overturn the decision? Can we try and salvage as much as possible from the current situation?

One illegal and immoral solution

It is clear that Ireland is in the super eight, so nothing can be done about that. However, there is still a ray of hope in group B (india’s group). I know it is illegal, but wouldn’t it make sense for a consortium of say SET, Tata SKY, LG and maybe tourism departments of West Indian governments to offer money to Bangladesh and ask them to lose to Bermuda? “you have done a fantastic job so far in the world cup. You’ve beaten India. Must be a very proud moment for your country. Can you please take this money now and leave, so that the rest of the world cup can go on? We would be better off without you!”

You might say this is scandalous. I don’t disagree. You will say it’s illegal. Of course it is. It will bring the game into disrepute. Yes. However, market forces and economics dictate that I do this. That this group (ok let’s leave the Caribbean governments out) offer money to Bangladesh to lose to Bermuda. On a purely financial basis, everyone will be better off!

Is there a legal solution to this problem? I mean, if you keep offering money to the underdogs to lose, aren’t you infringing on sporting spirit? What is the use of a tournament then? And why restrict it to cricket, I know that the Chennai Open lost a lot of money after Nadal was upset. Couldn’t all his opponents have been offered money to make sure he went to the finals?

One legal solution

Sadly, this solution can’t be implemented right now, but the parties concerned might want to look at this from the next tournament (starting with say the French Open; or maybe the Euro 2008 qualifiers) onwards. It is not a complete solution, but at least it helps the parties concerned mitigate the loss caused by the upset. It is the fine financial art of hedging.

By buying broadcast rights for a major tournament such as a world cup, you are unwittingly betting on the results of a few matches. Betting that the country where you’ll broadcast will do well. Betting that there aren’t too many major upsets. Betting that results will follow a certain pattern. You know you can’t affect the results, so the next best thing is to hedge!

Go to Ladbrokes, and take the opposite position. Bet, and bet well so as to limit your losses in case some results don’t go according to plan. Maybe you’re not very good at betting, and after all it’s not your core competence. Not to worry. I’m sure some good investment banker would come up with a product with returns linked to the results of a few matches. He will provide you a product with which all the implicit bets you’ve taken will be hedged. And he will go to Ladbrokes and hedge his position by taking positions there. And charge you a small premium for it. Beautiful, isn’t it?

This is the end my friend

For his accomplishments, for his skills, for the languid grace he brought to the batting crease, for being one of cricket's true originals, Inzamam ul Haq deserved much more than this last farewell.

Age and his back have feasted hungrily on his batting and the last calendar year was an indifferent one. Last August, he was the country's poster-boy, defending a nation's pride at the Oval, and yet last weekend his posters were being stomped on and burned, so quickly feelings have changed.

But in one instant, as he skied Tawanda Muwaripa to Sean Williams and began the last ride to the pavilion one last time, emotions switched again. Brisker than usual on departure, the walk stalled as every Zimbabwe player rushed to shake his hand.

And briefly, as life is supposed to flash before your eyes in the instant before you die, as he hurried, teary-eyed, into an emotional guard of honour from his team, all that was good and great about Inzi flashed before us; the yo-yoing weight, the clean-shaven cherubic chubby giving way to the patriarchal beard, the brain ticking over impassively calculating run chases, the bendy flick off his hips over square leg, the hunched, shuffling drives, those violent cuts.

If you squinted hard enough through coloured eyes, you glimpsed the impudence of the 1992 semi-final 60, the grace of the Karachi hundred against India and the scheming behind the Ahmedabad 60. In a week of tears, here came another sly one: once he was up those dressing room stairs, who would bring that calm, that solidity that you sensed in the middle order, even when he was out of form, every time he walked out?

I'm glad that young Zimbabwe team had the sense of occasion, of history, to send Inzy off with honor.

What more can you say, except thank you, Inzamam -- thanks for a handful of glorious cricketing memories.

About A Roy!

Hitting balls out of the ground is a magical sensation... there's a split second where you've got fear and excitement competing before you realize the ball's gone the journey and you're not going to get out." - Andrew 'Roy' Symonds

"as soon as I could walk I was into sport and wouldn't have been much older than twelve months when I got my first bat and ball... they were made of foam, and so my earliest cricketing moments were spent if not on the green playing fields of England, then certainly on the carpets." - Andrew 'Roy' Symonds

Adopted in Birmingham in 1975, Symmo as he is now known was brought to Australia and raised in Far North Queensland. 'Roy' could have played for the Poms but dreamed only of wearing the baggy green. He is now one of the most exciting players in the game and currently holds the world record for the most sixes in an innings as well as the most sixes in a match. Roy: Going For Broke is the touching and determined story of one man's dream to play at the top.

Buy it here

How accenture helped the ACB

Client
Australian Cricket Board - e-Learning

Project
e-Learning

Executive Summary
Accenture worked with the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) to implement an innovative e-Learning solution for aspiring cricket coaches, with the overall aim of increasing the number of accredited coaches in Australia. The solution was designed to deliver a more up-to-date, efficient and cost effective training programthat was not location-dependent.

Business Challenge

The Australian Cricket Board (ACB) – Australia’s governing body for developing, growing and administering the game of cricket – recognised that its current coaching program was extremely outdated, had a limited reach and was not producing sufficient graduates to meet the increasing demand for coaches. To further compound the issue, the ACB was not recovering all its costs from course fees, which were continuing to increase year by year. The ACB was therefore searching for a more effective way of training the next generation of cricket coaches.

How Accenture Helped

Accenture initially conducted an e-Learning Workshop with the ACB to assist in the development of an overall strategy for its accredited coaching courses. As a result of the workshop, the ACB recognized that an e-Learning approach was the most effective way to address its current coaching issues and decided to convert its Level 1 / Youth Coaching Course to an e-Learning CD-ROM format.

“Fostering and developing quality cricket coaches is an important part of our overall development and growth strategy for the game,” said Peter Hanlon from the ACB. “Accenture’s workshop demonstrated how e-Learning can best achieve our goals of developing innovative, highly accessible and cost-effective training courses.”

With much of the existing training program being outdated, Accenture’s commitment to understanding a client’s business was fundamental to achieving success. Accenture worked in conjunction with the ACB and leading cricket experts to develop completely new content based on current coaching methods and capturing the most up-to-date thinking.

As a result, the solution is the first cricket coaching program to deliver a complete competency model rather than just teaching the basic skills of coaching. In addition to cricket skills, the e-Learning solution encompasses important coaching attributes like game strategy, program development, interpersonal communication and the spirit of the game.

The solution consists of six core components:

• Competency-based curriculum – Focusing on coaching competencies, including Spirit and Laws of the Game, The Role of the Coach, Fitness and Safety, Game Strategy and Interpersonal Communication.
• Modular learning design - Ensuring flexible delivery of competency-based training activities and maximising re-use of learning content.
• Instructional design – Providing multiple interactivity / practice options.
• Performance simulation - Incorporating realistic coaching simulations, which enhance the learning experience by providing a safe learning environment.
• Learning technology - Incorporating modelling tools that enable the accurate representation of psychomotor skills as well as interactive feedback tools, which enable users to practice new skills in a ”real-world” environment.
• Future Proofing - Providing the flexibility and expandability to ensure that it can meet future business requirements.

Developed initially on a CD-ROM, the intent is to transfer the training course to a Web-based e-Learning platform.

Once a participant has successfully completed the e-Learning course, they are required to demonstrate their proficiency in the presence of an approved instructor to receive accreditation.

Value Delivered

The CD-ROM has been distributed to cricket clubs and game development officers nationally, providing the ACB with an efficient and cost effective way to reach a much wider audience. Aspiring coaches in all regions of Australia now have access to a flexible and easy-to-use training program, which can be completed at a time and location that suits them.

The solution has opened up a new channel for game development for the ACB, laying the foundation for future e-Learning initiatives, including further coaching programs, as well as umpire and player courses.

Additionally, with the general principals of cricket being applicable across all competing countries, the ACB has the opportunity to market this particular e-Learning program, as well as future solutions, to other national cricket boards around the world.

Will they do it again?

The Australian team pose with the 1987, 1999 and 2003 World Cup Trophies during the Australian Cricket team World Cup portrait session at The Hilton Hotel February 27, 2007 in Sydney, Australia.

Is failure a synonym for betrayal?

An excellent post by Mukul Kesavan, I can't find the link to the original post so I have reproduced it here.

The subcontinental cricket fan is a lazy, pampered know-nothing who thinks he owns the cricket teams that he supports.His sense of proprietorship is so developed that when his team loses, he speaks (or writes) of being betrayed without a tremor of self- consciousness.

He is never disappointed, he's always 'let down' by the inadequate, time-serving, overpaid villains who represent him and his nation.

The vandals who attacked Mahendra Singh Dhoni's house in Ranchi are stock characters in Indian cricket's absurd dramas, clones of the men who did the same to Mohammad Kaif's house the last time round in South Africa.

Kaif's fault was the same as Dhoni's: being part of a losing Indian team. How do these fucking lunatics justify their actions to themselves?

Most people recognise that a sense of entitlement has to be based upon some sort of contract, written or otherwise.

If a cricketer takes a bribe from a bookie and underperforms, there is a genuine breach of trust because these are public figures who have been dishonest.

As cricket fans it's reasonable for us to feel frustrated and annoyed by incompetence but even chronic incompetence doesn't warrant a reaction as disproportionate as betrayal.

Think of the Barmy Army. Here's a contingent of fat English fans who spend weeks, even months of their lives following the English team around, just to cheer their players on.

In between watching cricket they get some sun, sand and sea in, but they're there for their team at considerable cost to themselves.

England loses more often than it wins, but i don't notice this caravan of supporters killing themselves or threatening to kill their champions.
Why are they different from desi couch potatoes who never leave their rooms, never exert themselves except to find their remote controls and yet treat every Indian defeat as a conspiracy against the Nation Recumbent?

They're different because India if I may say so is a nation of losers(in sport): its teams win at nothing but cricket. Two, because cricket fans from outside the subcontinent have generally played some outdoor sport, they have some practical experience of how difficult competitive sport is.

If you've never played cricket and if the reason you watch it is because it's on television, your expectations are radically different.

You're a voyeur: the sort of person who watches other people do it. It is a 'virtual'condition, unmediated by experience or empathy.

In India because cricket fans form such a large segment of both the market and the electorate, the state and the private sector both pander to the fan's sense of entitlement.

The Supreme Court, despite its enormous backlog of cases, took the time to rule that private television companies with exclusive rights to telecast matches involving India would have to share their feed with Doordarshan because it was in the 'public interest' to telecast international matches that featured India, free to air.

As a newspaper said at the time: "...There is no doubt that millions of people in India take a tremendous interest in cricket matches... However, logic will have to be stretched if this is to be taken to mean that telecast of cricket matches involves the 'public interest'...".

This sort of endorsement by the Supreme Court persuades the Indian fan that the team exists to service his need for a happy ending, that he is the source of the team's legitimacy, that India's internationals are accountable to him.

Multinational companies with colas to sell reinforce the same message. One cola company has a campaign which makes great play with the theme of the Blue Billion, suggesting that the team is sprung in some mystical way from the great multitudes of India, or at least its cola-swilling millions.

A commercial in this campaign is funny without meaning to be. It cuts from our cricketing heroes to a shot of tigers padding around the ground: Dravid and Co turned into India's all-conquering national animal.

After being destroyed by Mortaza and Co, though, the commercial seems to embody Bangladesh more than India: the Indian team swallowed whole by Bengal's tigers. So much for symbolism.

Two days ago a Pakistani cricket blog was inundated with comments demanding an apology from the team to the Pakistani people because Pakistan had gone and lost to lowly Ireland.

One charmer called on Inzamam to "...get lost before we sacrifice you in the name of God like we do on Eid-ul-Azha...".

Well, he got his human sacrifice the next day even if it was the coach, Bob Woolmer, and not the captain who died. The violence of this fan's rhetoric wasn't exceptional.

Even Woolmer's tragic death is unlikely to shock subcontinental fans into acknowledging that to go on the way they do is to be sick in the head.

So, perhaps it's a good thing that Pakistan didn't make it to the Super Eights. Maybe it’s good India fell by the wayside too.

At least the crazed fans who attack homes and ask for their captain's head will be forced to spend their waking hours doing something else. They might take a break from spectatorship and actually play something. Even marbles would do: it would teach them that failure isn't a synonym for betrayal.

Cricket lost its soul a long time ago.

The reality is that India reaching the World Cup final would be an overachievement. Australia and South Africa possess superior teams, New Zealand have more balance and depth and Sri Lanka are the most improved team in world cricket. India have proven, but ageing, batsmen, a bowling attack that's susceptible to pressure and poor fielders. To be a fan is to dream. But to many Indian fans the dream is the reality.

Nationalism is the bedrock of cricket. But you can't call yourself a true fan if the sight of 18-year old Tamim Iqbal charging down pitch to belt Indian quick bowlers brought you no thrill. Yes, India played below themselves, but every cricket match has a winner. To be unable to comprehend, and appreciate, this runs against the spirit of the game.

As an Indian, I would like India to win the World Cup. But it might not be such a bad thing for cricket if they were to be knocked out in the first round. Cricket needs a reality check. It has an unhealthy, and unsustainable, business model that relies primarily on an increasingly delusional and one-dimensional fan-base. The bubble has to burst for a semblance of sanity to be restored. We must learn to once again enjoy cricket as a game. - Sambit Bal

In honour of Bob

Nadeem Khan, a Pakistani fan, was nearly thrown out of Sabina Park for holding up this sign inside the stadium, when Pakistan met Zimbabwe in Cricket World Cup action. People witnessed Khan being told by Ray Foy,stadia safety manager, that his sign was unnerving people, and he should not show it anymore. During the game he sat next to the Pakistan dressing room, and Mr. Foy told him he had received enough complaints about his sign. Khan said he was just honouring Bob Woolmer's memory. - Photos by Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer

Robert 'Bob' Andrew Woolmer (1948-2007)

"May your pitch in the sky be evenpaced,the boundaries small and the sky always blue. - Anon"

The world is shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Bob Woolmer.He devoted his life to cricket, both as a player and in particular as an innovative and respected coach. He will be sorely missed by the cricket community. Our sincere and heartfelt condolences go to his wife, Gill,sons Dale and Russell and the Pakistan cricket team.

Godspeed Bob, go in peace.