January 4, 2025

 This has been an awesome lazy and chilly Saturday morning thus far. India have bowled Australia out for 181, and unexpectedly have a lead of 4 runs after a now usual dismal batting performance in the first innings. The Sydney ground looks more like an Adelaide ground- fast, bouncy, swingy, seamy- unlike the typical SCG wicket. India have been batting all morning ( in Dubai) and it is turning out to be an absorbing contest. Pant scored briskly but now runs are coming in trickles- a few more overs left to bat out on day 2. Jadeja is out there with Reddy- I have to say Jadeja is looking pretty poor. Has hung around for 30 balls but scored 2 runs- and is looking like getting out every ball. 20 more minutes to survive today. Something has to be said about Virat Kohli. The last innings of the series and he gets out cheaply fishing on the offside. It is only when you see his batting now, that you realize what a genius Sachin Tendulkar was. That was a side that was not blessed with a Jasprit Bumrah else they would have done better. But batting wise there was so much steel in that side. From Ganguly's' heroics in Brisbane after a lean patch to the unbelievable 241 scored by Sachin - where he shut down shop on the offside for the entire innings. Not to mention VVS Laxman , Sehwag and David who had such memorable times against this opposition in particular. Nowadays there is no grinding out and wearing bowlers down- the test game has changed permanently it would seem. But equally the batters just don't have the mental fortitude to graft. This will always keep a test batting side vulnerable. Kohli is a seriously good batsman, so lovely to watch when he is going well- but is no Sachin Tendulkar- in fact he is not even a Rahul Dravid.  And now, he might be staring at the end of the road in his test career. This is a long and dreary stare, and not the kind someone of his caliber should be facing at the exit point.  But such is sport. You never know how things will go on the field even with the best of intention and preparation. So much depends on the pitch, and what goes on in your mind. Consider how fit and disciplined Kohli is- nothing short of inspirational. But he cannot handle anything outside the offstump at the moment. It is just the way it is. In some ways, completely random. It will be interesting to see if he is dropped for the next series. 

The sportsperson’s life is so fundamentally different from ours. All your life you struggle, put in hours and hours- sacrifice fun of every kind to break into the big league. We used to worry about competition to get into a good college. This is competition to first get into a club side, then a state side and finally a national side- in a country of 1.5 Billion people. And the competition is also higher than getting into engineering college because the latter is still limited to people of a certain minimum IQ level- statistically this group will be smaller than the competition in sports since there is no real constraint in intelligence- and if you look at cricket, it is not the most demanding athletic sport- although these days you do need to be supremely fit to play. Somehow, though, I intuitively know that is far harder to succeed as a sports person. Which is also why, when you do succeed, the payout can be stratospheric. It can change not only the life of the sports person but for his extended family and their coming generations. I think such people deserve the money they make. It cannot be easy. I think Investment Bankers have it a lot easier- and I maintain that banking is the best way to get rich without much effort or personal risk. One just has to break in to the club. But Filmstars, sports persons, pop stars or other entertainers in general have it really hard and they are playing at very low odds. For one success there are millions who fail.  But here is my random thought. What if my intuition and what is generally believed about the odds in these unconventional fields is patently false. After all, everybody knows at the outset that the odds for success in sports, arts or entertainment is miniscule. That means, no rational person will enter this space unless he has no better alternative. So the only people entering will be a select group of supremely talented people. So you will not compete with a billion people, but maybe a few thousand- which is a lot easier than cracking an engineering entrance exam. But now the payout looks very different. An engineering degree will get you a humdrum job with an average pay- while the other career can propel you to heights never imagined. The downside of failure will be higher ofcourse because there is no humdrum average salaried job for you if don’t make it. However, as I have previously argued, with the advent of AI- the Nash equilibrium will ensue when everyone is promised a Universal Basic Income. If and when that happens, the artist , entertainer or sportsman suddenly has a safety net. This will make millions more pursue these fields who will benefit from much higher quality and diversity. These millions, mind you, will anyway struggle to find conventional humdrum jobs on account of being supplanted by AI. Hence AI, inadvertently, could provide a serious fillip to the Arts, Entertainment and indeed Sports industries. Certainly the Arts could use this already as it is clearly under-regarded. The only form that is an essence of our primal humanity is regarded as a somewhat inferior and futile pursuit by those in the money and those who control the economic and political narrative. Could AI could actually be a self-goal for the Techno-Feudal high-fidelity first class traveling set?