The Hindu Business Line : Indian cricket, Olympic high jump

Lack of marquee players and emphasis on the best interests of the team over individual accomplishments; strong work ethic, intelligence and high level of preparation for games; versatile players, able to play multiple positions; and multiple schemes intended to take advantage of the opponent's weaknesses.

A profile of Indian eleven? Oh, no, these are the characteristics that Wikipedia narrates of the New England Patriots, or `Pats', a professional American football team. Vijay Govindarajan nostalgically remembers the Pats, when Business Line asked him for his views about the recent World Cup debacle Indian players faced. "A lesson in mismanagement," says the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business in The Amos Tuck Scholl Dartmouth College, US.

"The Indian cricket team's miserable performance at the World Cup is not isolated or surprising. In the past year, India has won only 3 out of the 16 one-day internationals played outside India. There is something fundamentally wrong with Indian cricket," fumes VG. "Three ingredients of world-class organisations were missing in our team: Talent, team spirit, and execution discipline."

VG dissects the case of the wailing willow using his favourite three-box theory. For starters, box 1 is `managing the present'; box 2 is `selectively forgetting the past'; and box 3 `creating the future'. Don't get stuck in the first box, but move to the second and third, urges VG's philosophy.

Our cricket has focused too much on box 1 and done precious little in box 2 and box 3, diagnoses the professor.

What do we do now? "We have to ask more fundamental questions about how the world of cricket is changing and how we need to get the right people and the right processes (fast paced grounds, physical conditioning, mental attitude, etc) to compete in the future," insists VG.

"Reflect for a moment what happened to the Indian field hockey when it transformed into astro-turf. Let us hope that Indian cricket won't meet with the same fate as Indian field hockey. Let us build a pipeline of young talent that can chalk out an exciting future and selectively forget some of the old stalwarts like Tendulkar whose great years are behind him."

For the avid, there is an analysis of Olympic high jump that VG offers, on http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu. "Early on, the Scissors style dominated — it was much like hurdling. As all high jumpers were using the scissors approach, the name of the game was being the best at Scissors. The high jumpers were operating in Box 1. If they were businesspeople, they would have been competing on cost, market share, and margins."

Then? "One day, someone changed the rules of the game, by inventing the Western Roll. (High-jumpers launched and landed on the same foot, and kept their backs to the bar.)"

This style stayed on for nearly a quarter century, until someone changed the rules again!

In came the Eastern Roll, a.k.a. the Straddle, in which high jumpers launched and landed on opposite feet, and faced the bar.

"Then in the 1968 Olympics, former gymnast Dick Fosbury broke the Olympic record by three inches, creating a third discontinuous change. (The "Fosbury Flop" involved a straight approach, jumping with both feet, and twisting the body 180 degrees — like a gymnast — looking away from the pole)," narrates VG.

The big shifts that transformed the high jump are examples of box 3 thinking, he explains.

"The inventive high-jumpers were not managing the present, they were creating the future." Wish we had such shifts in cricket too.

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in