Charu Sharma, IPL and the ruthless corporate world

Freehit - as my blogname mentions - is not restricted to cricket and IPL (Indian Premier League), but I thought my first post should be dedicated to the same. Reason: IPL’s popularity and because two of my icons (Dr. Vijay Mallya and Charu Sharma) are in the news.

Just to give an introduction as to how all those 3 in the title of my blog are related: Mr. Mallya owns the Royal Challengers Bangalore team, Charu ‘was’ the CEO of the team in IPL. The stress on the word ‘was’ because, Charu was fired from his post, due to Bangalore’s non-performance. Till date, they have won just 2 of the 8 matches they have played - a stunning 25% win record. For a team full of quality players, this result does not convey the entire story.

I’ve a few concerns/questions at this junture:

1) The role of CEO:  We have known the corporate world for their ’Perform or Perish’ mantra. But, at the end of the day, your 11 players have to perform. And those eleven players are decided by the captain and/or coach. So, what has a CEO got to play on the losses?

2) ‘Individual’ franshisee owners more affected: I think Mr. Mallya, a person who’s worth is $1.2 bn, and who owns 42 homes, 250 vintage cars, a customized Boeing 727 and two other corporate jets, and three yachts-including the Kalizma, took ownership of Bangalore franchisee ($ 0.1 bn) for something more than business intentions. A small calculation suggests the franchisee is worth ~8% of his personal wealth (although the franchisee was not bought out of his money). So, when comparatively (as compared to individual owners like SRK and Preity) you know that you wouldn’t lose much and you would break-even in a few years, why should you fire someone who is remotely related for the losses?

3) Fire himself/Dravid: They chose a very good team which was more suited for a H100 cricket (my terminology for 100 overs-a-side match ) rather than T20. So, it should have been Dravid/Mallya who should have raised their hand and accounted for the bad patch the team is undergoing.

4) No questioning Charu’s credentials: There have been just 2 Indian sports presenters that i have known and grown up with: Harsha Bhogle and Charu Sharma. A person who started his career in 1982 in the Asian games and whose career has been blemishless should have been treated with a bit more respect.

In just the half way stage (7 out of 14 for every team), Charu was fired. This would certainly affect the team’s morale and they would always be under the influence of pressure, which could affect them further. I still have great respect for Mallya, for his flamboyance and charisma, but i feel he was wronged in the way he handled this incident.

The team has played 1 match under the new CEO and has lost it. But, it would be interesting to see how many matches does Team Bangalore win after the new CEO has taken charge. I’m just hoping that cricket would not be influenced more by commercialization and would continue to be played as a sport, for the interest of the audience and the sport itself.