HARSHA BHOGLE

A monk's extraordinary patience can be a hindrance to desperate decision-making.

I am a kid who played university cricket, so to be around international cricket is a blessing.

In sports teams, apart from talk of sporting prowess and the imparting of inspirational thought, an extraordinary amount of time is spent discussing, and flaunting, material possessions.

Like an author, a cricketer signs his name on every innings he bats or bowls in; indeed for every cricket ball that challenges him on the field.

To be a commentator, you must have a life outside cricket, too. If cricket is all that you know, then you would not be a great commentator.

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.

Sometimes your greatest strength can emerge as a weakness if the context changes.

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

Across professions, consistency is a direct product of work ethic.

For a long time, television said, 'We won't cover cricket unless you pay us to cover it.' Then they said, 'OK, the next rights are sold for 55 million dollars. The next rights are sold for 612 million dollars.' So, it's a bit of a curve, that.

Conflict of interest and lack of transparency, though they are global features as we saw post-Iraq, almost define Indian cricket.

One of the reasons you study at great institutions or aspire to work in great corporations is that you hope to acquire the values they stand for.

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.

Cliches are cliches because they are true.

Cricket cannot afford to throw up meaningless games before its benefactors, which is what spectators and television audiences are.

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.

Among sportsmen are the noble, the diligent and the caring, as there are the callous, the cheats and the criminals.

I always wanted to play cricket, and I have played competitive cricket to a fairly good level. I remember that my father used to come and watch me play. He used to love watching me play.

There are no rules in live television.

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

Sometimes, quite out of the blue, sport will throw up a tender moment, when hostility ceases and an opponent is acknowledged.

Cricket, like all sport, offers glory to few and a lifetime of it to even fewer. For the investment it demands, it offers short careers that end when people in other professions are starting to flourish.

Change doesn't always mean progress, but the status quo isn't always the best result either. It is merely the most convenient.

Sports and management are not as diverse as people think.

And yet, winning is like a welcome drink going down your throat, like a beautiful embrace. It is brilliant while it lasts but it isn't forever. The high eventually melts away and the journey of life begins afresh. The truly remarkable among us visit these highs periodically; winning then becomes a journey, a graph where each point is crucial but is in reality merely part of a larger curve.