Dev Prasad is a cricket fanatic and has been in management for a long time. His latest book, Pitch It makes an attempt to connect aspects of management in cricket to the management of companies. He contends, “Cricket is a unifying factor cutting across all sections of society in India. It is one of the major unifying factors in such a diverse country.”
The book began as a part of an article for an in-house magazine. “I wanted to write something that will not be very difficult to understand, can be appreciated by a larger audience. I realised that cricket and the corporate patterns are similar. You need to innovate, leadership plays a key role, team work is vital in both cricket and corporate entities. I started writing using cricketing episodes and began linking it to corporate examples.”
He adds: “The book has about 10 chapters, with 60 examples. Each episode starts with a cricket example, followed by a corporate example and the link between the two seemingly unrelated events.”
“There is a combination of specific events and personalities. For example, I talk about Clive Lloyd’s personality in shaping the West Indies into a champion team in the late 70s and 80s. Another chapter, turnaround specialist, talks about the 175 not out by Kapil Dev in the 1983 World Cup, which was instrumental in India going on to win the trophy in that edition. Some chapters discuss the success of the Australian team and compare it with the policies of general electric. The research and the writing took about two years. When you are writing about management and handling reams of data, you cannot afford to make mistakes.”
What does the future hold for Dev, the writer? “My first book was about spirituality and well being, the second deals with cricket and management, the third will be a crime thriller. It is a fast-paced novel, set with history and mythology as a backdrop.”
Dev contends, “You do not have to read this book page to page to understand the concepts. You can pick and choose events and episodes.”
Pitch It! is priced at Rs. 224 and available at book stores across the country.
