Pertinent Observations

12 Apr

What the hell was Vettori thinking?

I’m writing this post in anger. In disgust. At the sheer lack of strategic vision shown by Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Daniel Vettori. What the hell was he thinking when he threw the ball to Virat Kohli for the 19th over, with 43 required off two overs? Yes, there had been a miscalculation earlier which [...]

17 Mar

Sachin’s 100th

In the end it was quite appropriate. That the needlessly hyped “false statistic” of Sachin’s 100 100s came about in a match against a supposed minnow, in an inconsequential tournament, which didn’t even help India win the game. The hype surrounding this statistic had become unbearable, both for normal cricket fans and also for Sachin, [...]

12 Nov

Ranji Trophy and the Ultimatum Game

The Ultimatum Game is a commonly used research tool in behavioural economics. It is a “game” played between two players (say A and B) where A is given a sum of money which he has to split among himself and B. If B “accepts” the split,  both of them get the money as per A’s [...]

13 Jan

Ranji Reform

Perhaps the best thing that the BCCI has done in recent times is to hike the match fees given to players in First Class and List A matches. If i’m not wrong, first class players now get Rs. 2 lakh per game as match fees, and 1 lakh for List A games. Thus, if a [...]

03 Jul

Diminishing Value of a Red Card

Often when we see players being sent off AND penalty kick being awarded in the event of an illegal stop of a goal-bound ball, Baada and I have thought that the punishment is too harsh. That for stopping one goal, the team effectively gives away the goal (conversion rate of penalties is high) and also [...]

16 Jun

Discrete and continuous jobs

Earlier today, while contributing to a spectacular discussion about ambition on a mailing list that I’m part of, I realized that my CV basically translates to spectacular performance in entrance exams and certain other competitive exams, and not much otherwise. This made me think of the concept of a “discrete job” – where you are [...]

02 May

Josh

This used to be such a commonly used word back in school. To do anything you needed josh. To do anything well, you needed “full josh”. You would suddenly “get josh” to do something. And when you didn’t want to do something you’d say “josh illa” (back in school, I hardly spoke English. Used to [...]

11 Apr

Don’t use stud processes for fighter jobs and fighter processes for stud jobs

When people crib to other people that their job is not too exciting and that it’s too process-oriented and that there’s not muc scope for independend thinking, the usual response is that no job is inherently process-oriented or thinking-oriented, and that what matters is the way in which one perceives his job. People usually say [...]

08 Apr

It’s about getting the Cos Theta right

Earlier today I was talking to Baada and to Aadisht (independently) about jobs, and fit, and utilization of various skills and option value of skills not utilized etc. So it is like this – you possess a variety of skills, and the job that you are going to do will not involve a large number [...]

11 Mar

Why is Ten Sports sitting on so many rights?

I wanted to stay up last night. I wanted to stay up and watch the WI-Eng match till the very end. Waking up this morning and checking the scorecard, it seems like it was a really good match. And Fidel Edwards seems to have become a last-day-shutdown specialist. This is the second time this series [...]

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