Every once in a while, Radio New Zealand calls me for Bryan Crump’s show, “Nights on Radio New Zealand.” It is a surreal experience, not the least because koels are cooing here and it is night there. I submit three topics and we discuss this, usually live. I don’t know how to listen to it but here is the link on Radio New Zealand.
Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!
About the Author: Shoba Narayan
Shoba Narayan is an author, journalist and columnist. Besides writing, she is interested in nature, wine, gadgets and Sanskrit. Her lifelong mission is to get fit without exercising and lose weight without dieting.
Great interview!
It’s always puzzled me why Lalit Modi + IPL crashed and burned in this manner. He could have reached even greater heights if he was just a bit more patient and accommodating.
The most popular version of the story is that Lalit is more playboy than businessman. He only wanted to enrich himself and his family and is using IPL to do just that. He was reckless and ruthless and regarded nothing of rules. Question his values (the cheerleaders etc etc) and mores, poke at the rigging of various bids and basically ‘give a dog a bad name and hang him’.
The other version (Lalit’s version) is that nobody wanted to fund him when he started. So he raised money from friends and family. Now that it is incredibly successful everyone wants a piece of the action. (It is telling that BCCI revenues shot up nearly 20-30 fold if not more because of IPL.)
I think MAK Pataudi said it best. The speed and style at which Modi achieved success with IPL upset many of the BCCI old guard. Also, the initial success was so blinding that nobody could see straight, much less see anything amiss. And when Kochi happened everyone just ganged up on him.
I guess Lalit could have put together a professionally managed (read outside CEO) corporation with standardized (audited) reports. It is telling that amid the barrage of news stories (sweat equity and 50crore, 70crore, jumping like pinball scores) there is very little fact that, in turn, makes for very poor factual reporting. In a sense this has ultimately hurt Lalit and the IPL and, sadly, cricket in India.
It’s a damn crying shame. To quote a well known adage: “It’s just not cricket”.
Vinay I think he failed because of what Tiger Pataudi said i.e. his speed and style upset a lot of the BCCI old guard. I actually feel the same way about what Shoba had written about LSP earlier. (One of the LSP candidates, Hyma Pravin, also described how seats for women LSP candidates are usurped by their husbands/uncles/brothers. Just can’t go against the pot-belly grain of the old system.) In fact my firm is advising a very large company in India that is itself tired of the root rot in its old guard.
On a related point – women in IPL are either high end (owners of teams) or low end (cheerleaders), but not players on the field??
Vinay I guess I (have to) agree with some of your points. But at the same time I think the pure Western model of simply having outside CEO and audited reports may not really work the same way in India. (Somehow even these structures can be manipulated.) I think in some situations a different Indian model is required. Different meaning almost Grameen Bank like model is needed is what I feel. I can’t really describe more precisely what that model will be, but it is .. but it’s a starting point…
Vinay I guess I (have to) agree with some of your points. But at the same time I think the pure Western model of simply having outside CEO and audited reports may not really work the same way in India. (Somehow even these structures can be manipulated.) I think in some situations a different Indian model is required. Different meaning almost Grameen Bank like model is needed is what I feel. I can’t really describe more precisely what that model will be, but it is .. but it’s a starting point…