The recent World Cup where India seems to have lost even before they went for the tournament is interesting
Its interesting part is both the manner in which it prepared for the Cup - and the manner in which committees are being constituted to find out what went wrong. Along with this comes the consolation statement - ” its part of the wonderful confusion of cricket”. ( I know its not the exact statement - but this seemed appropriate).
My take :
- Losing is part of the game. ( battles can be lost)
- Losing badly is not.
- Losing badly in such a manner that India had no chance to win the Cup is not . ( battles may be lost - but wars need to be won)
- Losing badly in simple and easy situations are not part of the game.
Pre - amble
I was a mad cricketer till the age of 20. Played upto the under-19 State / University level . Thanks to my average academic brain, had to make use of that lovely system - “Sports Quota” to get into college. Last held a ball in a competetive match in 1990.
I’ve avoided seeing cricket for quite some time now . ( preferred to be a player , than a watcher ).
Finally at age 34 ( last Cup ) gave up that wild dream of getting a sudden call to make it into the Indian team ( as a opening bowler I may add) . So this Cup I watched / am continuing to watch.
This watching lead to some observances / linkages to the current work we ( both you and I ) do :
Point I
- How many times have you guys been in a desperate situation , sitting in your office, in the middle of a cold freezing winter night - sweating , and figuring out a solution ? ( knowing fully well that no matter what you do , its at best just loss mitigation - and therefore facing a dissatisfied client / employer) ?
- How many times , when we had made a more than adequate profit / performance , a client/ employer / someone who had no involvement in the says “ should have made more ” ?
- A lot of us are Advisors / Consultants / well paid Profesionals who work for Clients / Employers, who within our limited world, put us in pretty high pressure situations - all the time . We constantly get appraised, and I suspect its always our own self appraisals that really hurt .
- The space between 2 wrong decisions and the door is very short in our professions.
In the cricket world the “junta” (Indian translation - the mass of people ) is the client / employer.
So please quit belting out that excuse - about public pressure/expectancies in India being a little too high for Indian cricketers.
We know that and we ALL face high unachievable expectancies. We ( along with cricketers) are well paid to handle that pressure.
If Indian cricketers dont have the cajuns - they should just quit.
Point II
My (so called ) expertise lies in the area of Risk management for entities that have a risk exposure in highly volatile markets.
The basic aim in Risk management is - not to lose , or in a worse case - dont lose by much , when pursuing a gain /cost reduction / cost control .
( items in block quotes are the Financial approaches)
This is done by first understanding the entities risk exposure / ability to sustain risk for a particular exposure ( and I repeat this comes first). i.e the “strenghts and weaknesses” of the entity in a given risk situation. These are internal issues of the entity. These aspects are totally under our control. By understanding this we create a “Floor” for the risk ( limits risk of loss) . Without doing this floor/ limit , we in essense are depending on - hope , luck , blind faith …. etc etc … to succeed.
In a cricket world this deals in ones fielding / bowling .
- Am NOT going to comment on Indian fielding.
- India constantly goes in with four bowlers - where in the opposition is some how allowed to ” recover” in the middle overs ( happened in both the Bangladesh and Sri Lanka matches).
Ergo in cricket - we are weak in our creation of a “floor” in these departments. We do not have a plan to win. We just “hope” we will.
Next we “Try” to understand the situation the market is in. These are the ”opportunities and threats” and are external by nature. This is not under our control. However we try and make the best of the given situation. Getting a market call exactly right at the best possible price is like scoring a “6 or a 4″. But we know that this is rare . So we try and “manage” our exposure, by perhaps, not taking cover on an 100% cover on exposure at one go. ( or some with better expertise perhaps use 10% - 20% of the cover they have taken to trade - to bring down costs)
In a cricket world this deals with our batting .
- Batsmen to a large extent cannot do more than what that particular bowled ball offers. Batting has a bit of luck involved ( a bowler can be hit for a “6″ and still come back for a wicket, while a batsman once out has no second chance). Batting is the high risk end of the game. Batting by its very nature is not dependable. Depending on batting to win is stupid.
- However if India can manage this risk by trying to work towards singles , we can take some amount of the downside possibility out of the equation. We constantly love our whiz kid batsmens “4’s & 6’s”. Almost 70% of India’s runs comes from this. Indian batsmen dont like to run ( euphemistically termed for Dada “conserve energy” ).
- Of course all these tend to work very well in lovely dead Indian wickets , in front of our “4’s & 6’s” loving crowd. In teams like Australia , Srilanka, about 50% of their runs are on singles.
- India of course compounds this problem, by training our batsman on dead wickets. Our batsman have no awareness of the risks they will face in a fair wicket. ( read open market)
India depends on batting. India trains its batsmen on dead wickets. India does not do singles. Its a high risk strategy thats tuned towards losing.
Using the above two pieces of information ( what we have under our control and what is not totally under our control) we construct a hedge strategy / instrument that creates a “floor” on losses ( through stop losses/ option instruments ) while allowing opportunity. Most times we have to sacrifice some opportunity ( by way of “caps” to finance a “floor” in options / not overexposing ) in order to ensure we hit our main objective. Balancing out the risks with opportunity is the best management policy / chance for winning constantly.
In cricket terms it means
- A bias towards managing what we have under our control first ( bowling and fielding) even if India has to sacrifice some opportunity in batting .
- It also means managing the batting risk better. ( running between wickets)
The idea of the game is to win - not “try” to put up high scores.
Conclusion
In the current Indian system its a miracle every time India wins.
Notes
- This love for batting or smashing 4’s and 6’s is an Indian thing.
- Its a soft option.
- Does not involve a large amount of hard work ( like bowling, fielding).
- Depends on easy miracles.
- How many times have you found some members of this BCCI commitee ( thats been constituted to look into this mess) describe dead Indian wickets as “good wickets” ?
Some other Notes ;) (just love to question the accepted norm)
Why is a batsman allowed to step out and hit ( outside his crease) while poor bowlers are no balled ( when they cross the crease) ???
Now if its a fast bowler - thats ok - I understand - but in the case of a slow bowler…..why ??
( I know its crazy….. but as a bowler I’ve always wondered )