Who cares?

Why should anyone care if Saif Ali Khan's tatoo of Kareena Kapoor is real or not? Leave me alone!

Sherlock Holmes of Human Brain

Vilayanur S Ramachnadran MD PhD

Vilayanur S. "Rama" Ramachandran (born 1951) is a neurologist best known for his work in the fields of behavioral neurology and psychophysics. He is currently the Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, Professor in the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

This alumnus of Stanley Medical College, Madras is a fantastic speaker. He can describe the most complicated topics on neurosciences and inner workings of the brain in simple terms. Even I could understand!

After watching and listening to his Ted talk and BBC Reith lectures (Simply Fantastic) I wish I was his student. No wonder he is called “Sherlock Holmes of Human Brain”.

After numerous international awards and Padma Bhushan, I hope the Nobel Prize is next in line for him.

Just play the game

Now what? Cricket administrators are getting into trash talk !

"Graeme Smith and his boys are going to thump Anil Kumble and his charges."
Gerald Majola, Cricket South Africa's chief executive, flags off the pre-tour mind games

Who is it going to be next? Groundskeeper, equipment person?

What’s next for IPL and ICL

Before 1960’s there were two Professional football leagues National Football league (NFL) and American Football League (AFL). The NFL has been in existence since 1870’s whereas AFL started only in 1961. The NFL and AFL fought for players in the 1960’s. They had their independent drafts. The AFL- NFL war reached its peak in 19966 before cooler heads prevailed and a merger agreement was completed. Key roles were played by Kansas City Chief’s Founder Lamar Hunt and Tex Schramm of Dallas Cowboys. Since then the AFL-NFL championship has been termed as Super Bowl, even though in 1967 it was still played as AFL-NFL championship game.

Why this American Football knowledge, you might wonder.

Indian cricket specifically BCCI can learn a lot from this and try to be smart about this IPL and ICL. The first thing they have to do is not treat ICL as a rebel unit. It is a fair competitor in the market place that offers cricket and entertainment. BCCI has to stop bullying the growth of ICL. BCCI cannot be the monopoly as far as promoting cricket in India and the world. The world is flat and it is very fair to expect competition even though BCCI may not embrace that easily. As Freidman says in “The World is Flat” either embrace globalization and competition or get left behind completely.

In a couple of years, if both leagues survive financially, they should consider merging. If not, the market may force them to do so. The merger could create a bigger league with up to 20 teams that might be more global. The combined league would be even more powerful with broader audience spread across the world and it has the potential to succeed in USA as well, if packaged correctly. Why USA? If you have an entertaining product in Twenty20 cricket run very professionally, it could open up TV deals, which means more money for the league. ICC should play an active role with this league and come up with revenue sharing business models that will promote the game and its financial growth. The league then becomes completely driven and managed by team owners and not by cricket associations of test playing countries. Once the league becomes professional and run like a business, the goal for the league would be to earn more revenue. To earn more revenue, they have to offer a valuable product on the field.

With respect to the recent IPL drafts or auction, the teams will find out soon that not all big names are worth the money spent. Some teams will find out that they can get the best out of young player signed for a cheaper price. The auction system will not survive for long. The system must provide a mechanism for weaker teams to get better by signing bigger (if they are better) and better players. It is only a matter of time before the business owners and team management professionals will have to adopt “Money ball” tactics (how to get maximum performance from players signed cheap consistently) to finalize their rosters and not blindly sign them based on their legacy in tests and ODI cricket.