Fellow Indians, Cricket and CSK Fans: It's the time to decide!

When news about Sri Srinivasan should have been making us proud, the other Srinivasan is shaming us all over. This blog is an urgent appeal to Indian youth and all, in particular to my fellow CSK fans.

We do not have time as the final is tomorrow and I am requesting you to do something that is going to be against what you all hoped for - Request CSK to NOT play tomorrow but more importantly make sure finals happen between MI vs. RR or MI vs. SRH.

Why? 
1. This is so-called 21st century of India belongs to 65% of Indians who belong to <35 under and most of them would follow IPL. So its time to show whether you like to follow rules and will be against corruption and/or  improbity.

The fight against corruption and malpractices start from you.

What is my logic?
Meyyappan was the CSK Principal till they "erased like a kid at school" the evidences all over the internet and that is an admission of guilt - Nobody can deny this.

I have seen some of my CSK friends post that why not arrest owners of MI/KKR for Vindoos' links, but a wrong cannot correct another wrong. So force the IPL governing body to follow the rules.

If you decide to take cover under technicality and let CSK play the finals - you fail a generation of fight against corruption and malpractices in India. History is watching you.

Finally, even if CSK wins, everyone is going to taint the win and do you need such a win? Instead choose the high road to call it off and to make sure cricket wins, force MI vs. RR or MI vs. SRH - by this option Cricket wins.

So its my plea - force the IPL governing body to change the finals.

Do you relish your paydays anymore? ...

It’s about 10 PM and the night has started off with some strong philosophical debate. I was lost in thoughts about the value of IT, automation and how sometimes the ‘real’ value of humane consciousness may be losing after all! Let me forewarn this is a philosophical yet valuable thought-train for technology leaders and an interesting question for fellow bread-winners to take away…

First the question: are you relishing the salary that you draw especially in current macro-and micro-economic period?

In my school days, I remember how the 1^st of month set the expectations rolling and how the family prepared itself to the run up-to an end of month. Planning started at least a fortnight in advance and the joy of being born in a middle class family means – it allows the family members to gain a concept of ‘planning’ – This prepares the younger members of the family to understand the concept of money, planning and more importantly saving. Straightaway as a kid, I got myself the hat of project manager – Planning and Commercial acumen on the mould.

There was a little hum of joy for the first few days, the cash would be counted and the old man would go to a state run bank to deposit… Subsequently this element disappeared as the cheque came through and very soon, the money was directly deposited and cheque as well disappeared, but now there was a payslip.

Fast forward to 1990s when I began to earn. This was a time where IT bloomed in India and I earned much more than my dad would have in a decade – Soon I was in the land of opportunities where the pay cheque was delivered twice a month. The feeling was double and the payslip was a good feel-factor.

Subsequently with good business cases for IT automation and ‘value’ to employee, HR departments have totally done away with the payslips and now it is just a downloadable pdf. The situation is I don’t download the payslip that often. In fact I even forgot the last payday, which is what set these thoughts rolling… I will throw in a piece of info: every month-end, I still review the accounts, debt etc. Anyone who knows me, will surely concur on my management accounting skills and how I apply it on my household finances as well to review my investments and debts… I share this coz’ it’s not that I am at a position where pay-cheques are not important – I give due consideration to finances, but the very fact of automation means that many of you like me, wouldn’t be receiving a pay cheque or a pay slip – so back to my opening question – do you relish your paydays anymore?

How many of you enjoy or carry the feeling of earning money? Have the HR teams made an incorrect decision about doing away with physical payslips – has this concept subconsciously made us the humans lose the very concept about relishing what we earn and would this impact our productivity? According to me, this is quite an interesting concept in the days of ‘everything on social media/cloud’ and ‘smart-computing/tablets’ – How humane are we? How is technology impacting us subconsciously?

PS: If I have money and time, I would be keen to do a research on this topicJ!

Why RR have already won IPL6 and IPL is going to change from here on...

T20 games are designed in a way that’s really unfair to bowlers. Coming up with a strategy(s) to win such a format is no mean task. Hey but the world is unfair in many respects i.e. it’s not a level playing field. So having a few tricks up the sleeve is just not enough, but devising a whole new approach is needed. It’s difficult to ignore the ‘Moneyball’ approach in this context.

The ongoing IPL series is turning out to be a good to learn on strategizing strategies and team management. To select a team for such an event is a challenge. Mr Cricket (Rahul Dravid) and co. just spent 10% of the total cash to source a team that started as underdogs and has been on top form. Just yesterday they won against the tournament favourites, top performing and popular CSK (Chennai). There has been some chatter on twitter and such social-media sites about a defensive strategy – personally nothing wrong as I see it.

A subtle thing that I noticed (not many are discussing this subtlety) is the strategic time-out that Dravid called at the end of 9^th over. Until then, CSK were sitting merrily and hadn’t lost even a wicket. This time-out in my opinion changed things. I also ask the CSK that if they realised Dravid is applying a defensive tactic by delaying Watson, an option could have been to brig Ashwin early. I guess a smart man like Dhoni knew, that there were very few choices and only wait for chances.

There are some thoughts that play in my mind, CSK, MI and RCB have some very good quality and known players – so they winning the matches and climbing to top is not something a feat. It’s the likes of Rajasthan that sourced unknown players and have gone on to be the top 2^nd team. Even if they lose the finals, it doesn’t matter – they have shown ways to tackle an unfair situation to advantage. To show an analogy, currently another unrelated story is doing rounds in local papers in Tamil Nadu – schools select best performing students and coach them to secure state ranks and the criticism is that they should choose average and below average students, coach and make ‘em excel. In a way Dravid & co. have done the exact opposite – they chose a mix of players – some good ones and average ones to go on and win everything that came their way.

These are very valuable lessons that I will apply in future not only in business, but personal choices too.

1.  There is a context for everything and strategy is ongoing, need to be revised continuously – sometimes need to be brave and radical – c’mon it is a huge risk to source a team for 10% of total cash, where the temptation is to go all out and buy top players

2.  Don’t pay too much for the skills – sometimes an over-priced player may not deliver (all that glitters is not gold, also if it’s a tin, you can polish it and sell it as a silver!)

3.  A mixture of skills, with some leadership roles is enough to deliver the magic

4.  Finally – have some secrets up your sleeve!

I think we have a winner for IPL6 - RR... Because the IPL has just got interesting - next year rest of the teams are going to look at their wallets and skills before buying out top players!