THE SUBCONTINENT has been struck with a severe epidemic of late. It is called ‘cricket fever’. Classic symptoms include an acute lack of interest in the business at hand, eyes furtively glancing towards various kinds of screens and an unhealthy numbers related fixation articulated in these three words, ‘what’s the score?’
The nation has begun to get infected by this unfolding narrative of leather and wood. But what frequently gets overlooked is the extremely innovation infused journey, of this relatively newer version of an age old sport. For from its’ very inception; limited overs cricket has forced the game to change, adapt and synthesize. Frequently, these newer additions have enhanced the quality of cricket all around and have made it a better spectacle for the viewers. In fact cricket is perhaps the one example in all sport, which has constantly reinvented itself to keep abreast of a rapidly changing audience.
Maybe this is why a journey through the past World Cups is a necessary one. Not just because this might bring back moments of adrenaline coated nostalgia, but also for the fact that these milestones might be of particular pertinence to the white collar world.
For as modern day business flirts with the need to create new products and processes to gain competitive advantage; taking a long hard look at one day cricket could just ensure that such creative endeavors might not be left stumped.
An accident waiting to happen
Mark Twain once wisely mused that ‘the greatest inventor of them all was accident’. While it is not entirely clear if he said that to soften the impact, after spilling coffee on his wife’s favorite dress, this is certainly a maxim that has great relevance in the field of innovation.
One day cricket formally took birth as the result of an accident as well. When the first four days of an Ashes test had rained out (in the early seventies), the two teams put up an impromptu show on the fifth for the assembled spectators. Perhaps the feedback from both the players and the audience indicated that something interesting had been stumbled upon. Limited overs cricket has never looked back since that day.
Organizations often underplay the importance of chance discoveries, sometimes on the mere premise that these had not been planned for. But the future belongs to those companies that can exploit such serendipitous events. The legend of P&G turning an oversight by a worker (handling a mixing machine) which resulted in a better product, into the iconic Ivory brand is just one case in point.
Getting the fundamentals right
It would be written in the constitution of creative thinking, if there was some such thing, that nothing worthwhile can be achieved without having a sound platform in the basics. Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi, one of the great pioneers in this field, stresses that exhaustive domain knowledge is absolutely critical; before game changing inventions are successfully embarked upon.
The history of the World Cup, in one day internationals, has been dominated by two great sides-The West Indian one in the seventies and the Australian unit that captured the last three editions. What was common to both of them was that they essentially fielded nearly the same teams for tests as well. Essentially they were blessed with a batch of players; who had internalized the craft to such an extent, that the different versions of the game in which they were performing became merely incidental.
Perhaps this is why one can associate Tata Motors with such breakthroughs in automation; as the mini truck segment creating Tata Ace, and the peoples’ car Tata Nano. Or one can see the fruits of Apple’s inherent understanding of digital technology and the need of individuality, in its ‘i-suffixed’ offerings.
A surprise test in an ODI
Few things raise the hackles of creative thinking as much as provocations. The need to forcibly react to an emotionally charged stimulus, frequently results in fresher approaches and better results
