Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Twenty 20 international cricket & random thoughts

Late last night, I happened to watch the first match of first international Twenty20 World cup cricket. For a spectator, it was just action packed sport as they were runs galore- unbelievable batting by West Indian Chris Gayle and very interesting to see how the South Africans were to retort. The match summary is here .

For once, I didnt feel guilty as I just spent a little over 3 hours to watch my favourite sport :-)!

Analysing the specific match, here are a few highlights

- Despite Gayles massacre of 117 runs in 50 odd balls, West Indies just cdnt keep up the tempo once he was dismissed.

-There was drama in the first over of South Africans batted-Their captain Smith broke his hand and they had scored just one run. It was sheer leadership on show as he kept the team interests above his personal discomfort and put back the team on momentum within a few overs, and one could see the tables turned immediately on the Windies.

-Windies bowling got wayward-and in the first ten overs, they had bowled 18 wides..and extra 30% of deliveries, and dropped 3 catches under pressure.

It left me thinking- on the first principles-and compare with the business environment.

-after all its a team game and one single performance isnt good enough to tilt the balance.
-one had to do all the basics right -despite the length of the game.
-its the temparement which eventually mattered as the conditions were similar for both teams.
-leadership matters!

Yes, I somehow felt the Twenty20 was loaded in favour of the batsman

-the bowlers just could not afford to make mistakes. A 'no ball' -meant a 'free hit ' of the next delivery for the batsman-with no chance to get out-but score at will -with an unchanged field.

-the odds that ten wickets would fall in a 20 over match are very much lower -and so the risk that batsman can take -was significantly higher than the other versions. ( Perhaps they should deduct 10 runs for every dismissal to put the pressure back on the batsman in such games :-)!)

Any take away for us HR professionals here? Especially in the context of the news report
Microsoft backs cricket to woo Indian employees?

1. Life long employment in companies is like traditional Test cricket. Are purists outdated?

2. The last two decades has seen people jump jobs every 2-3 years. (a la one day cricket match which has beena sponsor's delight ?).
3. Is the future going to be loaded in favour of people seeking instant gratification?

The challenge for the HR is to be aligned to business demands-while still making the players enjoy and bring delight to the various stakeholders.

2 comments:

http://nicheitjobs.googlepages.com said...

Good comparisons made between sporting actions and the careers.

thanks

Anonymous said...

Twenty 20 cricket is here to stay. To quote an oft-quoted cliche by Ravi Shastri : It's jsut what the doctor ordered.