Yet Another QLC?

An article I was reading on Cricinfo a few minutes back had this line:

Taylor sat quietly beside his captain, no doubt trying to soak up the moment.

Thinking about it, I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve had such a moment. A moment which had a sense of achievement, where I just sat, quiet, trying to soak up the moment. It’s not that I haven’t felt this way before; it is just that this kind of thing hasn’t happened for a long time. And looking forward, there doesn’t seem to be much scope for this kind of a thing.

It seems like life has been reduced to short occasional moments of intellectual wankery, and nothing surronding them. Life seems to have become, to an extent, mechanical. It doesn’t seem like there is anything on the horizon which will give a sense of achievement. It seems like whatever good I will do will be slow and incremental; like an innings by Shivnarine Chanderpaul; rather than like a hostile spell of pace bowling by Jerome Taylor.

I’m only twenty six, and occasionally I have trouble convincing myself that I’m ONLY twenty six, and that twenty six isn’t that old, after all. When this brought up in conversations, most people like to comment that it is time for me to get married. I’m not sure if the tenure matching on that is right. Apart from perhaps one “achievement moment” when I finally end up successfully pataofying someone, I don’t see how that will solve the problem that I have described here.

Thinking about it yet again, I wonder if this “achievement model” is faulty and unsustainable, and if I should reorient myself to work towards incremental benefits. Kodhi (ok before I forget, I should credit him for the discussion that led to this post) said “Tendulkar of 98 is not the same as Tendulkar of 08”. It was a poignant comparison.

Maybe a time comes for everyone – when this time occurs is not a matter of importance, and varies across people – when ticking off achievements is not the priority, and priority is to just go on and do one’s duty (which, in Tendulkar’s case, is to play excellent cricket, and win matches for India). It is not exactly an encouraging thought, but is probably true. What do you think?

Rafa and the Ranatunga Principle

Today seems to be a massive theory session. In the morning, I introduced you to the Mata Amrita Index. Now, as I write this watching the third set of (ok it’s the third set now – when I’m starting to write. for all you know, by the time I finish this, the match might be over) the Australian Open, I think it is a good time for me to introduce to you the Ranatunga Principle of energy management.

The Ranatunga principle states that:

When you don’t need to run, walk.

Yes, it is that simple. And if played an instrumental part in Sri Lanka’s victory in the 1996 Cricket world cup. Arjuna Ranatunga, the captain, was a massive guy. Yet, he was an excellent finisher, converting the ones into twos, and the twos into threes, running them hard, making everyone wonder where he managed to get so much energy and stamina from. The key to his performance was what this terriffic energy management.

He knew that the effort involved in each run wasn’t the same. There were a few that were “obvious singles” or “obvious twos” and he correctly realized that there was no point in running them faster than was necessary. And he simply walked them, saving up his precious energy and stamina for the runs that required more energy. In fact, if you recollect, the defining picture of Ranatunga in the 1996 world cup was his nudging a ball to third man and lazily walking a single.

Similarly, in tennis, due to the unique game-set-match scoring system, not all points are of the same value. Some points are more equal than others. For example, it doesnt’ matter if you lose a game at love, or if you lose it after making 30. However, certain points (break points, especially) can make a tremendous difference to the game, and it is important that you win those.

Tennis, especially of the non-grass court variety, is a highly energy-consuming game. We saw on Friday the Nadal-Verdasco game being played for almost five hours. The final also promises to go on for a similar length of time. Even on grass, as we saw in the last Wimbledon, tennis can become an endurance game. To remind you, Rafa Nadal beat Roger Federer in the final back then, taking the fifth set 9-7 (Wimbledon has no tie-breakers in the last set). It was his superior energy-management and stamina-management that saw him through that day.

It had been a long time since I had seen Rafa play, and looking at him play today, it is clear that he has understood the Ranatunga principle well. In fact, he seems to be an excellent exponent of the same. A while back, Federer was leading 40-0, and Rafa just gave up and allowed Federer to take the game, choosing to preserve his energies for more important point. I’m not saying that Rafa has been completely giving up. What I’m saying is that he seems to be doing some kind of a “value analysis” for each point, and then deciding how much energy he is willing to spend on it.

I don’t know if he is a math stud, but you don’t need to be one in order to do simple Ranatunga analysis. You can get a computer to work out the relative values of points for you depending upon the match score, and broadly remember that when you are playing. And once you have done that a few times, you will automatically be able to figure out how much effort to put into each point (remember that you don’t need to know complicated projectile physics in order to catch a ball).

A lot of managers, especially fighters, don’t like the Ranatunga principle. Their management philosophy is that you always need to be f resh, and be prepared, and if you don’t dive on a regular basis, you won’t be able to dive when you actually need to. However, the Ranatunga reply to this is that as long as you know how to dive, and have general practice in diving, you will instinctively dive when you need to, and you should make sure that you have enough energy to dive.

Extending the analogy to work, there are some managers who like to push their subordinates to meet deadlines even when it isn’t important in the larger scheme of things. Their argument here is that their subordinates should have enough experience in diving so that they can use it when they need it. The Ranatunga response to that is for the subordinate to be smart, and to see the larger picture, and to call the manager’s bluff about the criticality of the project whenever it turns out to be not critical.

Ok, so Rafa has won the third set and leads the match 2 sets to 1. If this ends up being a pure endurance 5-setter, I would put my money on Rafa. He seems to be showing superior implementation of the Ranatunga principle.

IPL Structuring

I remember that this time, last year, I was eagerly looking forward to the IPL auctions. It also happened to be a time when I was actively looking out for a new job (i wasn’t going to find one till about six months later). And I was secretly hoping that one of the IPL franchises would employ me as a game theory and structuring consultant in order to help them out with the player auctions. While I tracked it online, I imagined myself sitting in the bidding room at the Trident, showing my excel sheet to the franchise owner and captain, and watch Preity Zinta enhance her Mata Amrita Index.

It was also a period of extreme NED, due to which i didn’t bother looking out actively to try consult for an IPL franchise. It was a period of low confidence, so I assumed I wasn’t good enough for this kind of work, and didnt’ bother doing anything in this direction. Frankly, I didn’t have a clue how to proceed, else i might have put SOME effort at least. A few months later, when the IPL was well underway, I figured out that one of my cousins is a big shot with Bangalore Royal Challengers, and he was among the people at the Trident who picked the Test XI to represent BRC. I wanted to kick myself, but for some reason I didn’t.

Currently, I’m comfortably employed, and so far have been happy with this job. Else I might have wanted to throw my hat into the ring. Once again, IPL team formation season is on. A few transfers have gone through already, and a few are currently in limbo. Bidding will happen next season for people who are joining the league this year. It promises to be an interesting time. And so far I’ve been deeply unhappy with the way the franchises are going about their business.

I’m especially upset with BRC, and have half a mind to call up my cousin who consults for them and give him a piece of my mind. How the hell could they let go of Zaheer Khan in exchage for Robin Uthappa? Yes, the latter is from Bangalore, and has that local pull factor. He has batted quite well this Ranji, though not anywhere close to what he played like 2 seasons back when he topped the batting charts. But he is supposed to be paid twice of what Zaheer was being paid! Is he really worth that much? I’m sure that BRC missed a trick here. I’m sure that had the BRC asked for a fee from Mumbai Indians in order to release Zaheer in exchange for Uthappa, the Indians would’ve definitely paid up. When Chelski can reportedly offer Anelka, Malouda, Alex and 15 million pounds in exchange for Robinho, Mumbai could definitely part with Uthappa and maybe a million dollars in exchange for Zaheer.

There were rumours of the Mumbai Indians negotiating a swap with Kings XI Punjab for a swap between Powar and Harbhajan, which reportedly got stalled because Harbhajan earns so much more than Powar. Once again, what if the Mumbai Indians paid a fee along with Harbhajan for Powar? I know it is ridiculous that Powar is worth Harbhajan plus a fee, but given their disparity in income, this is the only way that this deal is possible. And I’m sure that there is a particular fee, which if paid along with Harbhajan in exchange for Powar, will leave all the interested parties (Punjab, Mumbai, Harbhajan, Powar) better off. It seems like people are too lazy to find it.

The opportunities like this are endless. All that the franchises need is someone who has sufficient knowledge of game theory, coase theorem, a decent knowledge of cricket (interest in domestic cricket is a desirable quality) and who understands how to structure deals. I don’t know if franchises have already recruited such people but if they haven’t, they should try and recruit. The most obvious choice of person that I can think of who possesses all the above skills (including interest in domestic cricket) is me. Unlike last year, I’m not in the job market right now, but don’t mind doing some part-time stuff. I may not get paid, but I’m willing to work for a few IPL tickets and maybe invites to some parties with cricketers.

I’m also wondering if cricketers’ pay will go down starting the 2011 season onwards. The IPL auctions happened just before the downturn was to begin, and I’m sure that franchises have overpaid for most players. Since players have all signed three year contracts, their pay till the 2010 season is safe. Beyond that, I’m not sure if franchises will offer them fresh contracts at higher or equal salaries.

It would also be interesting to see if some version of the Bosman ruling is to operate in the IPL. We can only wait and see.

The Aftermath

Baada collaborated on the research leading up to his post. I hereby acknowledge his contribution and condemn his laziness for not blogging it himself.

One of the major problems of the financial crisis that has been happening for about two years now is that investment bankers, as a profession, stand discredited. Before this, they used to claim to be on the top of the intellectual ladder. And now, thanks to a handful (more than a handful; but still a small proportion) of phenomenally stupid investment bankers, the entire community stands discredited. Not just that, they have left the community of quants, of people who can be good at structuring, of finance people, of statisticians, all discredited. You say “all you need to do is to get a few ibankers into these jobs” and you’ll have people come at you like a pack of hounds, waving Mint and saying “look at the damage these buggers have caused, and you think they can solve this problem”.

So Baada and I were talking about cricket the other day. About how thanks to the demands of television, flat pitches are being prepared everywhere. Which is leading to tame and boring draws. Which has led to domestic cricket being effectively reduced to a one-innings game. Which has led to massive fourth innings run chases. Which has led to bowlers break down once every couple of seasons. And so forth.

The argument put forth in favour of flat pitches is that in order to maximise television revenues, you need the game to last five days. Excellent argument, and Baada and I agreed to it. But the friggin’ point is that if you have  a boring game, no one is going to watch it. If you have a game that is most likely to end up as a draw, it will have no audience. Advertisers would be paying through their nose for near-zilch viewership.

In the medium term, things should even out. Advertisers will realize that due to the boring nature of Test cricket, no one will watch it anyway, and will back away. Ad rates will fall. And TV rights bids will fall consequently. And the boards will understand their folly and take steps to make cricket interetsing again. (there is also the danger that boards will use this to say that no one watches Test cricket anymore and scraps it altogether). However, advertisers should not be so passive and wait for things to even out.

Given a large number of statistics, playing conditions, day of week seasonality and all such stuff, it shouldn’t be hard for the smart advertiser to figure out which are going to be his most profitable slots. And bid specifically for those. If one smart advertiser does that, then that advertiser stands to gain against other advertisers who will end up paying more money for less profitable slots. And so all advertisers will become smart. Now, the channels will stop seeing uniform demand patterns for their various advertising slots. They will now need to acquire smartness in order to combat the smart advertisers. This way, smartness will prevail in the system.

I’m sure that once something like this happens, natural balance will get restored. It will take much less time for TV channels to realize that three-day Tests on bowling pitches can get them greater revenues compared to runfests played over five days. And they won’t take much time to communicate the same to the boards who will then restore Test cricket back to glory.

The problem with a lot of advertising people is that they see themselves as “creative people” because of which they assume they don’t need to know and use maths. And they don’t do the smart calculations I described earlier. As for the brand managers, it is likely that a lot of them decided to pursue marketing because they either didn’t like quant or found themselves weak at quant. Apart from a few simple excel models, they too are likely to shun the kind of smartness required here.

So where are the white knights who can save the version of the gentleman’s game played in whites? Not currently in the ad agencies. Most likely not in the marketing departments. They are all out there. A few months ago, they were employed. Earning very good salaries, and grand bonuses. Earning amounts of money unaffordable to most advertising and marketing companies. Thanks to the financial meltdown, they are available now. Looking for a fresh challenge.

This is the best time for you to infuse quant to your business. You won’t get the kind of quant supply in the market that you are seeing now. Even if the financial industry doesn’t recover (in any case it will never go back to 2007 levels), supply side factors should ensure lower supply. Do that little experiment now. Acknowledge that numbers can do a lot of good for your business. Understand what structuring is all about, and estimate the kind of impact a good structurer can have on your revenues. Make that little bit effort and I’m sure you’ll get convinced. Go make that offer. An offer these ex-ibankers can’t refuse in the current circumstances at least.

PS: When I refer to investment banking, I also include the “outside-the-wall” side of the business (called “markets”; “sales and trading”; “securities” and various other names). In fact, I mostly talk about the outside-the-wall business, not having had any exposure inside the wall.

Regarding the Kumble controversy

Last week, Kumble was issued a notice by the BCCI for talking to the media about selection committee meetings. Kumble’s “crime” was telling the Mumbai Mirror that he insisted on two specialist keepers in the party.

Leaving the controversy alone, my hunch is that the selectors might have insisted on Parthiv Patel being the lone keeper on tour, thanks to his excellent batting in the last Ranji championship (albeit in the Plate League). Even if Patel has improved, the only thing Kumble remembers of him I think is the Sydney test in 2004, when he kept missing stumping after easy stumping, which was ultimately partly responsible for India failing to win the test and the series (Bucknor was the other reason).

In contrast, even if he gave away a record number of byes in his last test, Dinesh Kaarthick has generally kept well to Kumble and co. The general opinion is that he’s a better keeper than Dhoni, who usually gets the nod for his superior batting. I remember that during the last tour of England, every day Siddhartha Vaidyanathan used to write an article in Cricinfo demanding that Dhoni be dropped.

It is quite clear that Kumble significantly prefers Kaarthick’s keeping to Patel’s, and Kaarthick is also a competent batsman having played a significant number of his tests as a specialist batsman. And when the selectors wanted to pick Patel over him, Kumble reasoned that the best way to keep Patel outside of the area behind the stumps was to also get in Kaarthick into the squad.

What were the odds of an India-Pakistan final?

After the IPL, I’ve had an overdose of limited overs cricket and haven’t been watching much of it. Not even following it on Cricinfo – haven’t even found it that interesting.

Anyways I got just a little bit of enthu for following it thanks to India’s qualification for the finals. And that led me to the tournament rules, which I find ridiculous. I mean, I don’t know what organizers of tournaments are smoking nowadays – first you had the Euro where teams from the same group ended up in the same half of the draw and now this. In fact (though this must be a coincidence), the recently concluded Euro had a number of groups where two teams which had qualified from the same qualification group ended up in the same group (Italy-France; Holland-Romania; spain-sweden;). however, the last bit can be forgiven considering that it has a reasonable statistical probability.

Coming back to the Asia Cup, let us define Hong Kong and UAE as minnows and Bangladesh as mini-minnows. I know some of you will contest the latter bit, but what were the odds that Bangladesh was going to cause another upset? Let’s leave that debate aside and continue the analysis.

The tournament had a strange format. Six teams were in two pools, with the bottom team from each pool (basically the minnows) going out. Now, the top four teams played a super league; and the points gathered by teams from their original pools were also added. So basically, if you are going to forget about the minnows, the tournament was like a one-and-a-half round robin, with two pairs of teams playing each other twice, while there was one each of the other four matches. I have a feeling they came up with this design in order to have at least two India-Pakistan matches, which was the main source of revenue.

Ok I digress again. Coming back, assume that the mini-minnow loses to all non-minnow teams (in hindsight, it has duly done this duty. Though there was a small but un-ignorable probability that this might not have happened). So, if you take Bangladesh out of the tournament, that leaves Sri Lanka with four points (two wins over BD) while India and Pakistan have two each.

So you have SL -4; Ind -2; Pak -2. And you have India and Pakistan playing each other twice and taking on Sri Lanka once each. Assuming there are no draws/ties/no results, there is only one way that Sri Lanka would have gone out of the tournament – had they lost to both India and Pakistan, and the latter had won one bilateral game each. One win for Sri Lanka and they would go through to the final. Even if SL lost both their games, and say India beat Pakistan twice, it would come down to net run rate between SL and Pak, and with the former having had more games against the mini-minnows, they would in all probability have the better net run rate!

Ok let us bring in some numbers. Let us assume that even if SL were to lose both their “major” matches, the probability that they would have a “bad” net run rate (one that would be lower than that of the loser of the two indo-pak matches) is ridiculously small. And can be ignored. Hence, the only way in which Sri Lanka can go out is for them to lose to both India and Pakistan, who beat each other once each. Assuming that a priori the three teams are evenly matched, the probability of this happening would be 1/2 (india beat SL ) * 1/2 (pak beat SL ) * 2 * 1/2 * 1/2 (india and pak beat each other once each) = 1/8.

One of three things would have happened – either the organizers over-estimated the probability of Bangladesh causing an upset (yes, it’s still an upset if they beat ind/pak/SL) or they would have just wanted to guarantee two India Pakistan games or they wanted to virtually seed Sri Lanka into the final. The most probable reason, in my opinion, is the second one. And by their greed to guarantee at least two India-Pakistan games, the organizers ensured that the chances of an India-Pakistan final would be remote.

Dravid might have read Taleb

In yesterday’s post-match ceremony, Ramiz Raja complimented Rahul Dravid for his excellent captaincy. To which Dravid replied “well, I’ve done the same thing that I did in the previous games. Nothing special. You are complimenting me only because we won”. Honest stuff. Rather than simply taking the credit that was offered to him on a platter, he gives what I think is a rational explanation. Rather, I think if he had said “yeah I captained well today so we won” people would’ve said “you lost the last five games because you DIDN’T captain well”. So the way he handled it also helped him take the blame off his captaincy.

Then he goes on to say, “I think luck plays a big part in these games. In every game, you do the same things. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. Today luck was with us so we won” or something to that effect. Read this article by Amit Varma for related stuff..

Where does Nassim Taleb fit into all this? In Fooled by Randomness, he talks about exactly the same problem. I think he uses the example of CEO pay (I’m not sure). And goes on to say exactly what Dravid said – that two people might do exactly the same thing but one guy will turn out to be luckier and he’ll end up being hailed as a significantly better leader. That a small change in luck can have a huge impact on the career

Random

Given Shah Rukh’s affinity for smoking, I won’t be surprised if Kolkota Knight Riders decide to purchase a tobacco firm. Then it’ll be yet another case of KKR being involved in Barbarians at the gate

PS: Today‘s was one of the best games of the IPL so far. A low total defended successfully on a decent pitch. An excellent show of fast bowling, a few run outs, late recovery, bad umpiring (Tiwary had an inside edge)

Mohali vs Mumbai – pertinent observations

Some pertinent observations from yesterday’s game between Mohali and Mumbai

  • The new Mohali outfit (supposedly designed by Provogue) is a rip-off of the Chennai SuperStars outfit. That garish pink and grey. Though, one must admit that the new outfit did help turn luck Mohali’s way. And it’s definitely much better than the old one
  • They got their team also almost right. They rightly dispensed with the bits-and-pieces hopes and brought in three specialist foreign batsmen. The only guy i didn’t really know in the line-up was Sunny Sohal. Haven’t seen too much of him on domestic cricket scoresheets.
  • Bringing in VRV for Mota was another positive move. Yeah, VRV got taken to the cleaners in one over by Pollock and Tiwary. But he has performed well in domestic cricket this season, and also has good pace. One of the few fast bowlers to do well in Ranji this year (most of the others were just a bit quicker than dibbly dobbly)
  • I was multitasking with The Long Tail while watching the post-match proceedings. One moment, they show Preity Zinta hugging Brett Lee. The next moment, they show Sreesanth crying. Having heard about Sreesanth’s geelapan, I was wondering if the two incidents had anything to do with each other. Now it turns out that Harbhajan punched Sreesanth.
  • Thanks to Harbhajan’s punch, Mumbai might go down below Punjab in the fair play rankings. Again, it’s a Punjoo who has been responsible for it.
  • Mumbai is slowly getting their team right. Tiwary for Yeligati was a positive move. The only thing left now is to get rid of that Brave Rat (isn’t that what “Musa vir” translates to?) Khote and replace him with another batsman. Tendulkar if he is fit, or Rahane. If they want an all-rounder, they could try Gaurav Dhiman, who had opened the bowling along with RP Singh during the U-19 World Cup in 2004
  • This has nothing to do with this particular game, but the boundary lines need to be pushed back. Things are way too much loaded in favour of batsmen now.

Something fishy with the Indians

Mumbai Indians I mean. Their team selection so far has been inexplicable, and their tactics while bowling even more so.

1. What can you say about a batting line up where the absolute bunny Ashish Nehra (the only runs i’ve seen him score was the four to win against New Zealand in New Zealand in 2003. That game where Sehwag scored century and rest buckled chasing 199) bats at 9?

2. I’ve been regularly following first class cricket in India for some 2-3 seasons now. At least, I follow the ranji trophy super league, Duleep trophy and deodhar trophy. Who the hell are Musavir Khote, Dhawal Kulkarni and Vikrant Yeligati? What the hell are they doing in the Mumbai team?

It seems like there is some instruction either from Sharad Pawar or from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena to include a certain number of sons of the soil in the team. Even then, there are sons of the Mumbai soil who deserve to play much more than these jokers. People like Ajinkya Rahane were on the bench while these jokers played.

3. Bhajji’s captaincy was shocking to say the least. He bowls just two overs. Pollock bowls one over short of his quota. And you have people like Khote and Yeligati bowling and gettign smashed to all corners. Clearly, there seems to be some directive to make these guys bowl also.

4. The best thing I can think of is that this whole thing is an elaborate ploy by the team to show that playing just a few stars along with a large number of useless people can do the trick in T20. Yes, Sachin or Jayasuriya might singlehandedly win the odd match for them. But then there are 12 overs to be bowled outside of Pollock and Bhajji. And this is assuming they complete their quota – which may not be guaranteed.

Just so that this doesn’t become a Mumbai Indians bashing post, I’ll also add that it’s a disgrace to the IPL that Rajasthan Royals are playing a guy who won a reality show (Salunkhe). I always knew that team was a bit of a joke but this is too much even by their standards. And I read that ticket prices have had to be slashed by a large amount in Jaipur because no one is turning up. I told you Jaipur doesn’t have a cricket culture.