Some lessons and insights for lawyers from cricket:

1.) Foreign players are popular

AMSS, the leading law firm in India recently hired Niloufer Lam, a Banking law specialist from UK; recruited an Irish lawyer Paku Khan; and had UK Chief Operating Officer (COO) in Valerie Bowles.

At the same time Amarchand's turnovers are hitting the roof. This obviously cannot be owed only to the foreign players but they surely seem to be 'liked' by the Indians.

If Amarchand has a UK COO for the internal managment, Paddy Upton from South Africa has worked with the India Cricket team as the mental conditioning coach. And then you have Gary Kirsten and Eric Simons as the head coach and the bowling coach respectively.

Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh, the Indian cricket team's young coaches were shown the door and the former Amarchand' COO Bithika Anand resigned.

So why this fascination for the foreigner*? A tentative answer is at the end of the post.


2. Bond Bhaiya! The whole thing is that ki bhaiya sabse bada rupaiya!

Bond. Shane Bond. The genuine quickie preferred to play for ICL to playing for his country. It is another thing that the flightless down-to-earth Kiwis (well they can't soar like the Eagles, roar like the Tigers or hop like the Kangaroos) welcomed him back to the team.

Ravindra Jadeja, the left arm spin bowling all-rounder thought that he had many other skills to his all-round abilities. This 'man in blue' was having a sprightly colourful life. Alas! He was left white faced after being caught red handed for doing blackish money things. (You won't get the joke if you are colour blind, or are dullness bound). J

While cricketers seem to prefer money over country, NLU grads prefer money over life. Tell me what specimen of a 24 year old gets kicks from drafting contracts and M&As working 14 hours a day?


3. Team Building

If you get great individuals on board with ordinary team spirit, they'll fail. Get ordinary individuals with great team spirit, they'll succeed.

I hope some of you remember the World Cricket Team (WCT) which played against the great Australian team. WCT had Sehwag, Kallis, Pollock, Murali, Flintoff etc. It played Aus on several occassions and lost very very badly.

Man to man the WCT was probably stronger. Aus won because it was a team and not a bunch of individuals. The Paras Kuhad-Hemant Sahai episode tells us the importance of that something which allows two groups to march together as one. Team Spirit is important "...to preserve the culture- that we have always lived by...", to succeed, to thrive.

See how a shared value system holds JSA (Jyoti Sagar Associates) together.


The tentative answer

*Maybe control from someone with different values, belief systems, language and management style is more effective. Or it could be that becoming a cricket coach or a law firm coach is still not a mainstream career option for the Indian students.

Because while every 15 year old kid in every gully and every 18 year old in every law school want to be a cricketer and a law firmite respectively; becoming a coach/consultant is still out of the radar.

Are Indians too mesmerised by talents and prodigies and learn only upto a certain, very young age and then stop the process? Afterall, being a coach means being a keen student for long. Really long.

I am no expert on this. What do you say?

PS- Here is the previous (and controversial) post on IPL, cricket and law.