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Javed Miandad against Terrorism affecting India-Pakistan Cricket!

Last week a few great Pakistan cricketers have expressed their concerns about the impact of worsening political ties between India and Pakistan affecting cricket! Zaheer Abbas, Wasim Akram and Javed Miandad were the notable voices amongst them.

Miandad, the newly appointed, Director General of PCB felt that ‘Both India and Pakistan are victims of terrorism and cricket will bridge the gap between the two nations’.

I personally feel that the series should go ahead despite sentimental reasons and terrorism. Pakistan has lost control over its terrorist and fanatic outfits and hence there’s no point in cricket getting affected due to this. For that matter, even internal politics and terrorism is found in abundance in India as well.

My only point is that – Miandad – who was infamous for his on and off-field misbehavior as a player and otherwise may not be the ideal person to talk about terrorism and good politics. A couple of years ago, Miandad’s son got married to the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter and Mr. Miandad had clicked snaps with all possible criminals that caused the serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993. It feels funny when those who party with underworld dons and gang leaders talk about good side of politics and cricket!

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Border Gavaskar Trophy series review – One hell of a performance by the Indians :)

For the last one and half months, cricket fans around the world got to see one of the best test series ever involving two great test playing nations. The Border – Gavaskar Series 2008 was exciting not just because the Indian won the series 2-0, but it also put an end to Australia’s dominance in World cricket. More importantly, India seems to have combined high energy, great motivation levels, team combination and the urge to perform under its new captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and coach Gary Kirsten.

Turning Points and deciding factors

According to me, the folowing were the turning points of this series that took things in India’s favour.

  • Excellent opening stands in almost all tests by Sehwag-Gambhir as well as Sehwag-Vijay combo

  • The partnership between Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh, in the drawn Bangalore test, when Australia was on top. India managed to save the first match, just like the rain hit first test in the 2003 series down under, where the draw inspired the things to come

  • Kumble sitting out in the second test at Mohali, Mahendra Singh Dhoni taking the reigns and inspiring the team to a win. Dada proved why he’s a fighter yet again! Amit Mishra, the debutant, ran through the Aussies lineup with a Fiver in the first innings. An allround bowling performance in the second innings proved too much for the Australians

  • The Delhi test will only be remembered for batting feast and Kumble’s retirement. I personally thought that he should not have played that match but gracefully retire when Dhoni showcased his leadership skills!

  • Fab 4 one last time together, in the fourth test, proved too much for the Australians after a Dhoni led team decisively beat the Australians. Ponting’s decision to continue with his part timers to escape a match ban cost him the test and the series!

  • The ‘lucky’ Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni winning all his tosses meant that there was no stopping for India. Toss is a real decider in the Indian conditions, so…

What was the difference between the sides?

Barring the injured Anil Kumble and out of form Rahul Dravid, it was really an excellent series show by Team India. India’s bowling attack was versatile and almost all the time pinging for wickets. Batsmen and all-rounders backed up each other and performed as a team. Dhoni’s leadership by example was a treat to watch and so was the spirit within. The only improvement area, perhaps, is the ground and slip fielding.

Australia on the other hand were marred by their poor team selection, especially in the bowling department. Their speedsters could not reverse swing the SG balls and their spinners were not causing any major challenge to the Indian batsmen. Australia’s major batsmen really did not click nor were they consistent. This added additional headache to the bowlers.

Ponting’s captaincy was below par as well and he even showed his personal grudge against own team mates on and off the ground.

Learnings

Phasing out the old warhorses one by one and inducting the right people at the right time is something India is doing great and it is really working (at least within India). Australia on the other hand is still struggling in the bowling department after improper succession plans once McGrath and Warne were out.

Another learning is that the Australian team right now is just like any other team and they can be beaten by anybody. They may regroup and try to attack the way they used to do, but the skills do not seem to be the same anymore.

Two stalwarts going out

And for the stalwarts – Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly – that are going out, I will be dedicating separate posts soon…

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Indian test squad for the tour to Sri Lanka

The Indian team for the test series in Sri Lank has been announced! There are no real surprises after the ODI captain and wicket keeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni opted out of this tour due to the need for some good rest.

The inclusion of Pragyan Ojha and Rohit Sharma into the test squad is the right move. Both of them definitely have shown much more maturity than their age demand and have been professional in their approaches. Ojha could also use this opportunity to play with an experienced spin legend like Anil Kumble. Rohit Sharma, I feel, has nothing more to learn to qualify for the test team but just need to learn to stay at the crease a little longer.

Yuvraj Singh’s omission is a very good message to youngsters that ‘performing in patches’ will not help anybody to be part of the test team. I always thought Yuvi doesn’t have what it takes to play test matches and extremely low on temperament to play longer. He is a poor player against spin bowling and Sri Lanka has some great spinners around right now.

In the pace bowling department, I thought Manpreet Gony could have been given a chance ahead of Munaf Patel as the latter has the history of getting injured or loosing confidence half way through test series, more often than not. Gony is a better batsman and fielder as well. Probably, the selectors are over worried about the fact that Sreesanth is not available for this tour to open along with Zaheer and Ishant Sharma has been looking a little bit different of late as compared to his form in Australia last year. The decision not to consider Irfan Pathan for the sub-continent wickets sounds reasonable as well.

Now that the team is selected, the team think-tank needs to do a couple of things to get the results right and also to nurture the youngsters for the future. As a basic rule probably they should allow only three out of the big five (Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly and Sehwag) to play in any match together. Otherwise, the youngsters will not get any chance to perform along with the experienced ones. I hope that Gary Kirsten and Anil Kumble will give some thought to plan towards the future. Also the big six (with Kumble) should realize that time has come for them to rotate and slowly retire over a period of one to one and half years.

Dhoni opts out
Dhoni’s decision to opt out of this test series sounds more like a ‘forced’ supporting act to his statements earlier in the press. While players definitely need some break and probably have rotation policy what they have to cut down is the number of one-dayers and Twenty 20 matches. Hope he gets some good rest and greater number of endorsements during his much needed break from test matches. Or is it a silent protest against the selectors for not considering him for the test captaincy of an aging team?

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The brainless think-tank!

We are just a couple of weeks into India’s latest encounter down under. A cricket series in Australia is always something that the fans look forward to due to a couple of facts. First of all, we get to see it only once in four years – so it is something as important as the Olympic games! Secondly, it is a beauty to watch and feel professional test cricket at its highest levels with lively pitches, fans, cricket governing bodies and media playing their own roles to perfection – and sometimes beyond – to make it a mega event. Personally, watching test matches, in which Australia participates, gives me more satisfaction than watching matches involving any other competitive teams. India’s last outing in Australia during 2003-04 has been thrilling for the outcome that we all are proud of but the current series is already turning out to be disappointing due to improper planning.

This series was hyped to be the best chance to beat Australia in its own den as it is probably the last Australian tour for India’s ‘strong’ and prolific middle order men as well as their best bowler ever, Anil Kumble, who happens to be captaining the side as well. However, having talent on paper or executing the same in subcontinent pitches and other favourable conditions alone is not sufficient for tours abroad, especially in Australia.

The Indian cricket board missed a trick or two during the Pakistan tour to India itself. If India genuinely wanted to perform in Australia, they should have scheduled at least couple of test matches in good test cricket pitches like Mohali or Chennai. By not doing so, they managed to escape from Shoaib Akhtar & co and won against Pakistan but miserably failing in Australia. As they arrived late in Australia this time and the lone practice match was disturbed by rain, the preparation at home had to be better.

The next mistake was the team selection and continuing experiments with the batting order. If they had any plan to include (surprise!) Virender Sehwag in the squad he should have been given a chance in at least one test match against Pakistan. Sehwag though not in great form gives some headache to the opposition even though his stay at crease may be shorter. Against Australia, one needs to be mentally prepared and try to offend and attack rather than playing defensive game like Dravid did in the first innings of the first test in Melbourne. If not Sehwag, for sure Dinesh Karthik should have been opening with Wasim Jaffer. Karthik has been a revelation during the series in England and South Africa. It is really surprising that the team think tank decided not to play him due to his couple of failures in dead pitches in India. Ideally he could have played the role that Akash Chopra played in the last series in Australia. On the other hand, the Indian team management decided to sacrifice the stability and composition of the team by not picking the right openers only to include some flat pitch heroes or ODI/Twenty 20 specialists in the batting lineup. To begin a series with positive frame of mind, India had to really attack. The bowlers did it very well but batsmen spoilt all those great efforts. The problem is not really with the batsmen but the roles they are assigned to play. This failure will definitely affect the rest of the test series as well as the performance in the ODIs. For example, Yuvaraj Singh should have been maintained only for ODIs and his failures in tests will also reflect in his approach to the ODI series.

The untimely statements of the selection committee chairman had created a lot of chaos for the players in the past. It is not his job to comment in the press and put players under pressure. I guess, players like Virender Sehwag, Mohammed Kaif, Saurav Ganguly, Dinesh Karthik and now Rahul Dravid are the victims of this wrong statements of expectation. The under-pressure players then react by playing defensive games and targeting individual achievements rather than playing for the team’s cause.

As I mentioned just a while back, having a positive frame of mind is very important to play Australia. Having restricted Australia to less than 350 runs and more importantly getting them all out in less than a day (How often does it happen?), India’s reply was too negative in nature. Rahul Dravid and Wasim Jaffer didn’t make any attempt to rule the Aussies. Another important thing was that probably the in form Ganguly probably should have batted at No. 4. Tendulkar’s attitude in the second innings is always questionable. While chasing huge scores and if couple of wickets are already down he has this ‘why should I waste my time and energy, anyway we are going to loose’ attitude. Another problem is the fielding ethics by the Indians. Even Australia has many players in their mid thirtys but their commitment is far better than that of the Indians. For example, Indians easily allow the opposition to convert their ones to twos and twos to threes. Australians always keep the batsmen under pressure by charging in or by a sudden pick, turn and throw. The bad running between the wicktes have been another example of defensive cricket by the Indians.

If India has to win at least one match in this series, they need to get their basics right from the selection itself. First they needs to pick their best openers and then three or four middle order batsmen followed by a wicket keeper. Depending on the nature of pitch three seamers plus one spinner or two seamers plus two spinners can be picked. It is even worth trying a combination of two openers, three middle order men, one wicket keeper batsman, three seamers (off which one is an all rounder) and two spinners. Ones they get the team composition right, they can plan and pace the game better. This will also reassure and remind each and every person in the team about their roles.

As a long-term step, the BCCI has to really change their mindset to save the Indian cricket from test matches point of view. At the moment, BCCI is more like running a money making business rather than governing a sports body. Due to this attitude, they are concentrating on categories that fetch in money and hence more focus on one day cricket, telecast rights etc. If they are truly worried about the future of Indian cricket, they need to do a few things like providing world class pitches in India, improving domestic itinerary and format, introducing new talent search program, coming up with fair selection policies, forming succession planning etc. It’s a fact that India’s top four batsmen and bowler will retire from international cricket in less than two years time and who are going to fill in there?

At the moment, as a short term goal, we can only hope for a better team composition and better mindsets from the players in the upcoming test matches in Australia. Wishing the Indian cricket all the very best for this new year and their very first match of the year being played in Sydney!

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Four business ideas in the auto space

In the last article I touched upon the changing face of the Indian automobile industry and the brisk pace at which it is growing. The entire automotive echo system has greatly benefited out of this sudden surge, in the past ten years or so, providing job opportunities to millions of people in India – thanks to the auto ancillary establishments, forging units, service centers, mechanic shops and agencies that provide related skills/services etc. However, there are still quite a few untapped market opportunities in this space, which does not necessarily provide jobs to people in bulk but are good business ideas to invest in. In this write up we will explore four such business opportunities (I should warn you that there is nothing innovative about them).

Multi-storied parking lots

Parking woes, along with strenuous traffic conditions, are common phenomena in all our metros and tier 1 cities. While the government and private-public partnerships need to work on the roads, nothing is preventing the venture capitalists or business men from starting a number of multistoried parking lots in key access locations in and around our big cities. Each of these parking lots ideally should accommodate 100 to 250 cars and should have automated machines at entry/exit that charge either hourly, daily or monthly parking fees from its customers. There can be services like round the clock security, parking full/free indicators, easy access via elevators or stairs etc that you can find in any modern parking lots in the western world. This is a very exciting business opportunity whereby the investments per such a building could be anywhere between 5 to 20 crores, depending on the city, locality and desired capacity etc.

Automated car wash centers

One of the worst things that could happen to your expensive, brand-new car is the scratches on the body – either owing to the packed traffic conditions or caused by the unskilled cleaner who is usually your gardener, house maid, security guard or chauffer. The latter issue can be addressed by introducing touchless automated car wash centers. This is an even better business opportunity compared to the first one as the number of expensive cars that are coming into the Indian market is growing day by day. The car wash centers automates the entire process of spraying water, applying shampoo, scrubbing the bottom/tyres, drying the car and applying wax in a sequence that takes hardly three to five minutes. It is high time we introduced such facilities in India. The initial investment per such units could be anywhere in the range of a crore or so but returns are guaranteed manyfold.

Traffic Radio channel

While our popular FM radio stations are updating listeners on the traffic conditions in respective cities, it is about time we had dedicated traffic radio stations. This has to be a public-private partnership in Indian conditions as getting relevant information from the traffic personnel on duty may be the only reliable input for providing such a service. This kind of a traffic radio station can be set up at a very minimal cost (say less than 15 lakhs or so) and the revenue model is driven by commercials. The recurring expense may include funding the government a little bit in the wake of the additional services that the traffic police department has to provide to the radio station. But this venture will definitely make more money than many of our popular FM stations as there is not much content production cost involved.

Mobile basic breakdown service

There are several breakdown services already provided by the service stations and big body shops. However, there are still opportunities for the small and medium scale entrepreneurs to enter this space. We are talking about providing very basic breakdown services like tyre repair/change, minor accident repair, replacing battery or uses, basic engine failures, etc. Depending on the number and type of service vehicles one would want to start with, this business can be set up at a cost of 1 to 10 lakhs. At 10 lakhs one can have five or six used Maruti Omnis on errand serving a whole city from various locations. The returns on investment would depend on the type and reliability of the service provided.

Do you have any other business idea related to the auto-industry?

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What is a developed country and what does it take to build one?

India is cruising on an economic boom following the reforms that started a decade ago! As a result it is now leading the rat race of attracting the foreign investment – ahead of countries like China, Brazil and Russia. India has some advantage over the relatively non-English speaking and ‘closed’ business world in the other countries. However, the spending pattern seem to be much more planned in their cases and there are a few things that India needs to workout carefully in order to take the country to a different level in the next fifteen to twenty years.

Most of the developed nations in the Americas, Europe and Oceania achieved that status in the 20th century via exploiting the aftereffects of the industrial revolution. Some of the parameters that supported their positive development included low population figures, early democratization, less corruption and education reforms. If India has to get there in that list it needs to work on more topics than the above in a more intensive fashion. Let me try to analyze some of the key issues (not necessarily in the order of priority) that we have and try to identify some solutions for the same.

Population

The population growth in India for the past few years have been at an annualized growth rate of around 2%. While for the developed nations this figure sounds perfect, India has to really work on cutting down this growth rate by half. If we go at this pace, by 2020 we will have 1.5 billion people in this country. There has to be strict measures to bring the population growth rate to around 0.75% annually at least for the next twenty five years. This can result in a manageable figure of 1.30 billion people by 2030, taking into account the current mortality rate. Further on, the growth rate has to be brought down to 0.4 to 0.5% which is optimal for typical developed nations. The drastic guidelines to achieve this target for a better tomorrow, could include enforcing the one-child-per-family rule. An easy way to enforce this is via imposing heavy consumption taxes (Chinese model) to the government, if there is more than one child in a family. Further more, increased school fees, power/water bills etc can be enforced if the size grows further. But this can work only with 40 or 50 percent of the middle class community. For the slum dwellers and illiterates there has to be a special drive to induce awareness and prioritize the rehabilitation of those who are following one or no child rules. If there are religious, social or racial rules that promote more children, it’s time to abolish such rules via constitution amendments. Providing free contraception and free consulting etc are other options. The government could even think of providing additional benefits and tax exemptions for those who plan to go childless. Some of these things may sound unethical for typical Indian culture, but we have no other go.

Literacy & Education reforms

The population issues are directly linked to the literacy rate. The proof is the state of Kerala (my home state), the most literate state in India, that has the lowest annual population growth (~0.9%) and the highest health index. Back in the 80s this particular state government triggered a mass campaign with the help of various non-profit organizations and thousands of individual volunteers to achieve 100% literacy and at the end of one year they were very close to that reality. This is something that other states can easily implement. The need for education reforms comes next. It is about time the state governments set up larger number of free basic education institutes for primary and middle schools.

Public health

Health is indeed wealth for a state, not just for an individual. Health awareness is primarily induced via basic education and if the latter is taken care of, the health index will naturally improve. What the government has to do is to improve the free supply of basic medicines via more channels than just the government hospitals. In addition, the vaccination drives etc, has to be done via more effective campaigns. The public sanitation facilities really need a face lift the availability of good quality drinking water has to be ensured in each and every village of this country.

Arresting corruption

Bureaucracy is synonymous to democracy in many developing nations. Corruption complements bureaucracy very well and this usually begins with the politicians themselves. Most developed nations have managed to arrest corruption at all levels and this makes sure that funds and taxes collected for development purposes reach the targeted audiences or projects. In India, we need to definitely act fast on a few things. It is high time we set some basic qualifications and clean history requirements for somebody to compete the state assembly or parliament elections. Many of our politicians come from criminal backgrounds and to top it all their educational qualifications are questionable.

For India to become a developed nation, we need people with good sense, great knowledge and vision ruling us. Laws need to be enforced to make sure that our
rulers and leaders are acceptable personalities. Recent developments of disqualifying many politicians from competing the UP elections is indeed a great move. To curb corruption, it is also necessary to empower independent bodies like Lok Ayukta (in Karnataka) that has the power to bring corrupt government officials to the law.

Continue the reforms

With a GDP growth rate of above 9% and current approximate GDP of USD 800 billion, India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world today. Right now it has a healthy foreign reserve of USD 200 billion that has doubled since 2003. At the current pace, it is safer to use part of it to pay off some of our long term debts. Also, the measures taken by the current government to boost exports of cotton products, jewelery, software etc should take the country into an accelerated growth orbit for the next few years. Improved tax collection, extra ordinary performance of Indian companies, resurgence of PSUs, alarming growth in profit of the Indian Railways, Indian companies buying out companies in Europe etc are some of the examples of a great developed nation in the making. We just need to and continue reforms and keep up this pace (or even better it) in the next ten years or so.

Infrastructure

If there is one single thing that stands in the way of development in India, it is the infrastructure related issues. We are nowhere near many of the leading developing nations in terms of providing infrastructure to attract even bigger foreign investments. We really need world class road-rail-air connectivity in this country. This has to be supported by uninterrupted power for industries and good sanitation, drainage and pollution-free air and water. These issues have to be addressed with utmost priority and rest of the things will fall into the right places automatically. It is time we concentrated on tier 2 and 3 cities and even satellite towns to build the infrastructure rather than relying on stagnated metros and cities.

Agriculture

In India we have a variety of crops, oil seeds and spices produced in its states. What we have been doing so far was to bank on the huge man power available and do agriculture the traditional way. This is not a good approach going forward. We need to really modernize our agriculture sector by adopting scientific methods and machinery to prepare the country for a better agricultural growth rate for the future. The agricultural products can top our exports chart if we revolutionize this sector and enough funding is made available. ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kissan‘ is still a great slogan, but I would really like to see the defense budget cut by 20% (for the next ten years) to allocate the same towards agriculture. The agriculture sector growth prediction is not so interesting for the next two years. It stands at around 2% annualized and this is what pulls down the GDP which otherwise is doing great due to stable services sector and manufacturing.

Manufacturing

Maintaining a growth rate of above 10% (as in the case of past year) in manufacturing sector is a great thing but India would be targeting a growth rate of above 14 pc in FY2008. This is indeed a great news though long term target should be more realistic, say 9-10pc. Looks like the current government wants to prove a point by reaching a great milestone in manufacturing while the growing inflation rates and slower agricultural growth doesn’t do any good to anybody.

Change mindsets

More than the scientific ways to maximize growth, what really can take India to the next level is its greatest asset – its people. Historically Indians have been having laid back attitude and we were taught to be lenient and tolerant. This cannot be the case going forward. We need a new generation of people that is aggressive, hardworking, focused and career oriented. This does not mean that our forefathers didn’t do any good to us. They fought their own way and fetched us freedom. The next generation built on top of it and now it’s time for us and the coming generations to maximize the opportunities that lie ahead. This has to be our pledge going forward!