Washing dirty linen in public – How not to deal with your Human Resources! - Virat Kohli vs BCCI

 

” Common Sense is not common”, I often comment in my classroom. The unfolding saga of Virat Kohli vs Saurav Ganguly Vs BCCI vs Azharuddin vs Sunil Gavaskar vs every other Indian has left me bemused and perplexed, to say the least.

First let us put things in perspective. Whether we like it or not Virat Kohli is a superstar cricketer. His popularity is phenomenal, only second to Sachin Tendulkar and his records speak for themselves. His captaincy record has been outstanding and his win percentage too has been good. His only blemish, not winning any ICC championships.

But why blame him? Even the great Sachin Tendulkar was not a great captain. We were lucky to have a Dhoni who did so well in ICC championships. But to hound and play the fool with Virat Kohli is not done at all.

First of all, Saurav Ganguly says that he asked Virat Kohli to reconsider his decision to give up T20I captaincy. Immediately Virat Kohli says that there was no such communication to him and that the decision to relieve him of ODI captaincy was conveyed only 90 minutes before the selection committee meeting.

Fine, BCCI. Why can’t you have all these discussions in-camera. Why do you need to wash your dirty linen in public? Then suddenly Rohit Sharma becomes injured and will not play test matches. On cue Virat Kohli says that it is his daughter’s birthday in January 2022 and that he would not play in the ODI series against south Africa.

Katti or tit for tat. BCCI has become the laughing stock of the world. And the comedy has yet not ended, Virat Kohli now says that he is available to play the Odo series against South Africa. One thing that BCCI has to realize is that Virat Kohli is a big draw and a superstar cricketer. It is better to deal with him with butter gloves.

BCCI is known to grovel before superstars. They had to humour Kapil Dev till he reached 432 wickets and had to put up with Sachin Tendulkar till he got 100 international hundreds and played 200 test matches.

I am sure that BCCI will placate Virat Kohli too. Why in the world would BCCI want to kill its golden goose! A goose that lays eggs worth crores of rupees!

2nd article published in HANS INDIA - 'Buck Up Corporate India'

My 2nd article published in HANS INDIA (12th May 2014). The URL for HANS INDIA is epaper.thehansindia.com. Go to YOUNG HANS (Archives) section and my article is in Page III. I tried uploading the PDF of the article but Facebook is not accepting PDF uploading. And the JPEG of the article gets blurred on zooming!

Super success story of the Sachin Digigraph campaign by BCCI.

Sachin Tendulkar the great Indian Cricketer has retired. He has left a quarter century of fond memories. His retirement swept India into a wave of sadness and nostalgia.

BCCI (Board of Control of Cricket in India) came out with a very innovative plan to bid  Sachin a fond farewell. It joined hands with Digigraph.me and Twitter to launch the “Thank you Sachin Campaign”. It was a very simple campaign (come to think of it, it is always the simplest of things that produce the most dramatic results). Fans of Sachin have to simply send a message saying “ThankYou Sachin” from their Twitter handle and they would instantaneously receive a Digigraph from Sachin Tendulkar. A Digigraph is a Digital Autograph. The Digital  autograph image of Sachin would contain the name of the recipient and would have a personal message from Sachin himself.

This campaign proved to be a super success. The cricket crazy fans of Sachin lapped up the offer. In all 35 digigraphs were on offer and many enthusiasts started collecting all the 35 digigraphs of the master blaster. Yes it is true that the digigraphs are digital have no intrinsic value but might become valuable in let’s say in thirty years’ time!

To ensure that this social media exercise grabs maximum eyeballs, Twitter had send out mails to users informing them of the end of the activity today. “Own a piece of history,” the mail reads. “Tweet to get a personalized photo from Sachin!”

Post Tendulkar’s final match, Rishi Jaitly for Twitter India announced that the campaign had generated a whopping 3 million tweets and counting. The digigraph themselves had been viewed 4 million times. Most importantly, a thank you message came from Tendulkar himself, acknowledging the campaign becoming the most retweeted tweet in India, with the current counter standing at 16,888 RTs and 11,389 favourites.

Great Campaign BCCI, Twitter and Digigraph. Suddenly Twitter is in big news. Many like me were very weary of this very intrusive media. But this campaign forced me on board and I am told many like me opened twitter accounts just to get their “Piece of History”. 

A  lesson to the Indian corporates who have had or still are using Sachin as a brand ambassador. Why is that they did not do similar activities like BCCI? After all BCCI is registered as a nonprofit making organization! It was sad to see that no newspaper (of the ones that I bought) had a special section on Sachin except Eenadu (a telugu dally), the day after Sachin finally retired. It was not that they were caught napping. The match ended at 1130 hours on Saturday and they had a lead time of nearly 12 hours. No wonder the print media is taking a beating from the Electronic media.

The corporates also missed a chance in tieing up with history. Why can’t Boost – the energy Drink, a long time sponsor of Sachin give away autographed bats of Sachin. This would generate enormous amount of good will and would increase the sale too. And why not.  It is payback time. The corporates who made money and increased their market share have to give something back to the fans who finally are responsible for the success of any brand and products. 

Some things to chew upon, Corporate India!

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