Traditionally, sport has looked down at number crunchers, but the reality is that they give sport the financial sustenance it needs.

For its health, cricket needs to look outward to the sharpest minds, to people who sustain and nurture brands and often take hard but necessary decisions. Cricket cannot be bound by cricketing minds alone.

Cricket is not a rational sport in India, and we go overboard.

Sports teaches you there is always a second innings in life. If you fail today, there's a second innings maybe two days later. Maybe there's another opportunity coming up three or six months later. If you look at mistake as learnings and commit never to make a same mistake again, then you actually get better with every mistake that you make.

Cricketers are made to feel that they are very special. That is okay as long as cricketers realise they are only as good as their last innings.