An Open Letter To The Mallyas
Dear Dr Vijay Mallya and Siddhartha Mallya
When our minds refuse to Rest In Peace, we have to write a letter to the Gods!
When my dad died a few years back, something very precious was up in smoke. Something that was very much mine was no longer with me. Yet I felt the thing that was mine and has been lost is still there - doesn't matter even if it is in the form of smoke! So didn't feel like leaving the crematorium!
It's much the same feeling today - so I'm hanging around, hopping from page to page and randomly posting my thoughts!
What saddens me most is the fact that it was not a match we lost on the ground during those 40 overs of madness. It was lost well before - at the strategy meetings starting from Match #7 when the scoreboard read Lost 2, Won 4.
I assume the "action plan" at the end of each strategy meeting would have been a "carbon copy" of the previous one!
To repeat the same stratgey over and over again, hoping they have failed enough times and this time it will work is surely not the way "a team run by a successful business tycoon" is expected to do!
I like the way DD exited - they didn't deviate from their philosophy of "attack from the word Go" - which explains why their loss to DC was by a narrow margin.
We lost 8 of the 15 matches played! Is there any narrow loss that we suffered in any match - a loss that makes us feel "we were at the doorstep of victory when the bell rang!?"
Dr Mallya, you’ve given too much freedom to your team to figure out how the game will be played – doesn’t matter if it’s won or lost! I am sure your management teams in other businesses will not have enjoyed this much freedom “when business was down”.
It will help if you bring "strong business management concepts" into how Team RCB shall "Form, Storm, Norm and Perform". You need more than just players, senior players, former players to make decisions on the playing XI. You need a different kind of think tank.
For starters, I would suggest that the team management should pick only 9 players of the playing XI. 2 players - 1 Indian, 1 Foreign, should be picked by The Mallyas based on suggestions from the RCB Fan Club on this site. This is an “emergency interim measure” till things get better. If what the fans expect and what the team does are different, there certainly is a disconnect that needs to be understood and addressed.
Otherwise, why waste the time of 100K fans on this site by giving space for them to express their opinions! The more space you give, the stronger their passions and anger get!
Teams that had dumb, static websites, dormant or no fan club, no goodie bags to offer, no free tickets etc. seem to have performed better than a team that was ostensibly very close to its fans! If they didn’t perform too well, at least 84,363 fans and their families, many of them being “fanatic fans”, would be less disappointed than us!
Surely you wouldn’t like to receive this “open letter” next year, right? All the best in all your sporting and other endeavours!
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No more expectations from the website managers, team management or Mallyas to respond to fans' concerns. I have given up!
I hope the boss....Dr.Mallya will take suitable measures to see RCB take the Cup in IPL # 4. The homework should start now.... we need a bunch of dynamic young challenging new generation of cricketers!!
Probably we were the only team in this edition to have the best team apart from Mumbai Indians.
The problem of plenty has given a head ache to the team management.
SURPRISINGLY WE DONT HAVE A LEFT HANDED BATSMAN IN OUR LINE UP!!
I thought we followed more of a sterotyped strategy, yeah our captain being a bowler will have different mindset as compared to the batsman.
Atleast in the semi-final we should have done something different for example Ross Taylor should have been sent as an opener and maybe pinch hitter like Praveen Kumar should have been sent in the first down he could have scored atleast 15 to 20 quick runs and we are nothing to loose as he is wasted at number 10. That is the surprise we should give to the opposition in a crucial game.
Same with the bowling department very much predictable.
Over all it was mixed feeling.
The bottom line opposition would not loose rather we should grab the opportunities in the crucial games.
If The Mallyas look at RCB as "hobby", they are not "obliged" to respond.
If they look at it as business, they are "obliged" to respond - directly or via a company executive OR SIMPLY BY DROPPING KALLIS IN THE 3rd PLACE PLAYOFF MATCH!
Seeing their body language during the matches, I'm sure they see it as more than a hobby!
In my opinion, "fans are customers and the organization that collected the money should have a mechanism to respond to the Voice of the Customer". The response could be generic to 99% of customer complaints and specific to the other 1%.
On website managers having to ask themselves if it is worth it or not, couldn't understand the rationale! It is a prestigious revenue stream for them! It is we fans, the free content creators ;-) who need to introspect if it is worth the time, energy and money!
@disha_shetty On "Fan Player suggestion" - it was meant to convey that 84,000 fans were screaming "Elementary, Mr Watson. Kallis Out, Merwe In; PK and/or Vinay Out, Mithun and/or Appanna In!"
I just do not know why Steve Smith never made it? Has he opted out at the last minute for any reason or the team asked him not to come to India? as I have always stated in my blogs/comments, Smith would have been the bowler who could have made a huge impact and may have been the difference for RCB to clinch some games with his allround capability.
He's one of my favorites too, and the quote that I have put for him - "Reolf VD Merwe - THE NUT - Did you know peanuts are ingredients of a Dynamite?" stand perfectly true. I first saw him in trashing the Aussie bowlers in the second T20 he played, and his selection with RCB increased my love for the team. I'm sure RCB management will think hard before letting him go! We'd all love to have him back :)
@Raghu I remember Jennings talk great about the South African counter parts in the team in the FFC Interview 1, but really what I felt is that he has a great liking for Kallis. He did ask me on a fans view on Kallis, and I was to talk good about him! He agreed to me when I said that you bat Kallis at the top of the order than don't bat him at all.
The team selection is always debatable, it differs from fans to fans and I'm sure every fan has a reason for their choices. All Mr. Mallya can do, is hear to the thoughts of the fans and override the decision of the captain & coach if he thinks isn't helping the team! It's only wise to let the captain and coach handle the team, but with a string of losses, it's better to take the step forward and give the team a reality check!
Just to comment on the point we made on pietersen on twitter, His joining the team does have some impact. It may not be seen on the field, but there is some resistance with him off the field. If that is the case, I think only MR. Mallaya can step in and solve it, either by discarding him or talking to the players! I like what u said "Starting from Champions league, we can only dream of a win if the star players go!"
Kunal