Planner by profession, Trekker by choice!!

Mohan and me were always planning for a trek since last year and finally he took a solid firm stand this year and formed a group of 16 trekking enthusiasts who were willing to try something new. We had a final meeting on the 2nd week of Feb and finalized on going to Mullayanagiri and the budget per head was 1500 to be paid on the Salary day!!! I understand it’s a very aggressive way to approach but that is what he wanted to do. Finally till the day before we left he chased people and collected the 1500 from 7 of us (I do not know how may people would have cursed him, you might know what it means to give away your hard earned 1500 bugs on the day its credited).
On Friday till 7 in the evening Mohan and me were not sure where we are heading into as he wanted to got to Mullayanagiri and the hurdle was the trek duration was a minimum of 8 hrs and we would be reaching chikmagalore only by 11 in the morning. So we finally agreed on Thadiyendamol and I called up Prakash and finalized on his homestay for 300 per head for 1 night with free dinner.

We started exactly at 5 in the morning and even before crossing electronic city main gate and even before I could ask all of them to sleep as they had a long day ahead Thirtha asked the driver to play some music and even before the music started I heard Thirtha singing load and within few seconds Rakesh joined her followed by Savita and Mohan and in no time the entire team. Infact Thirtha even started dancing in between (what would have been the condition if it was a tempo traveler, Ram & Prerana being an exception)!! They did not stop the hungama till we reached coorg at 9 in the morning, they either sang or spoke. Probably this kept the driver awake and me too (not sure if he enjoyed it or was getting irritated, but he stayed awake).
We had few chai’s and photo sessions in between and stopped for breakfast at Gonikoppa by 9.30. We all had a good intake of calories to face the huge climb ahead. We reached Nalknad palace, our start point by 11.30 and with all sunscreen lotion massage we started off with 3 ltrs of water, 3 500ml water with electoral, few biscuit packs, 1 Gatoride and chocolates by 12. Initial start was pretty slow and steady through the narrow tar road, and the luckily the weather was very pleasant. Just for fun I made a statement asking them to aim at climbing the hill twice so that they can finish it once strongly. This casual comment gave me a new thought, why not do it twice and I gave the water bottles to Mohan and me pushed off. Even nature was in my side by hiding the hard sun rays with a grey cloud and after haln an hours walk I was at the foot hills and I could see the summit covered with white cloud. By 1 I was in the middle of the hill and I saw the gang approaching the foot hills, and they were really moving in a good phase in spite of many photo sessions in between. The last few hundred meters is very steep and you really need to take sufficient breaks after every few steps, so it was 1.45 by the time I reached the summit and it was so foggy that I could not even realize that I had reached the summit. The sad part was the clouds had covered the beautiful mountains around giving a look as though some one had sprayed tear gas around. Now it was time for me to go down and start fresh again, and on my way back down I saw Savita and Rakesh climbing up and they were almost ready to knock down the last steep climb. Few more meters, I find the entire gang almost making it to the peak and I kept going down till I reached the foot hill and started climbing again, this time my phase was pretty good as my body had a good warm up. I could see Mohan, Ram, Thirtha and Prerana resting just few meters before the summit.

By 2.40 myself and Rakesh hit the summit followed by Savita, Ram, Mohan, Prerana and Thirtha. We did it!!!!!!!!! It was time for some good photo session and after few creative formations we started to move back. This time Ram was with me and we started to move back collecting more than half a dozen of polythene covers and plastic bottles that were thrown on the way. Why can’t the tourism department do something about it? Why not have a security at the entrance and make sure that no plastic items are carried, if not at least make sure they get back what they carry to the top. I understand it involves cost, why not collect 20 to 50 Rs as an entry fee, a person spending 1500 for the trek will not mind paying 50 Rs to keep the place plastic free.

Me, Ram, Rakesh and Thirtha reached the palace by 4.30 (I was surprised to see Thirtha dancing and singing with so much of energy still left in her) and had cold Fanta with salt (there was nothing else available). Savita had a cramp in her stomach!!! and they came by 5. After freshening up with clod water flowing from a nearby water stream we started off to madikeri by 6. We reached Prakash’s place by 7 in the evening and we took bath (except Ram, Prerana and Thirtha J) and started our chit chat session around the bonfire by 8. Prakash sent us the food by 8.30, a simple sambar, rasam, chicken curry and curd which was more than a seven course meal for us. If you are thinking this is the end of our adventure you are wrong. By 12 we started off for a moon light trek (there was no moon light though, the only light being my torch) to a nearby temple which really looks scary at night. More than the ghosts we ware scared of the hunting dogs, so we just had a look of the temple and returned back to the homestay by 1.I had to leave early the next day morning as I had a personal commitment (though I hate to do it) and had to be in Bangalore by noon I went to sleep and when I woke up it was 6.30 in the morning. I immediately got ready asked Prakash to keep the breakfast ready for them by 8 as they might leave by 10 and I left to Madikeri in the cab. From Madikeri I took a bus to Mysore and a Volvo to Balnaglore from Mysore. I reached Bangalore by 3 in the noon with all the experience and memories I could carry and at the same time I was missing all the fun that I could have had on my way back.

Epilogue
Remember me making this statement “asked Prakash to keep the breakfast ready for them by 8 as they might leave by 10”. I was wrong. They woke up at 1 in the noon as they had slept at 6 in the morning. They started off from Madikeri by 3 in the noon (I was in Bangalore), been to golden temple (not to see the monks, but for shopping, girls are girls!!) and left Kushalnagar by 6 in the evening. Here is a interesting character that I forgot to introduce, our Driver “Sidhu”. I do not know his full name and that is how he likes to be called. He is the perfect guy to come in the Monster Jobs ad. He is a diploma graduate and probably because of that he carries that ego. He likes to talk in English, and I am a guy waiting to talk in kannada (with full of slangs) as I am fed up of talking in English in the office. On the way back these folks collected some breezer and he asked them if they think if his cab was a bar!!! Firstly that idiot dose not know to differentiate between an alcoholic drink and a breezier!! Secondly, its a profession where he would meet all kind of people and if he has any such constraints he had to make it clear even before the deal was fixed.
I do not want to waste the space in my blog discussing about him. So all these folks reached Bangalore by 1.45 and stayed in Rakesh’s place.

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Economics of Sachin

Caution: This article is not for hard core fans of Sachin as this statistically proves that he is no better than a Brian Lara or Mark Waugh, Ricky ponting or even Saeed Anwar.

Now, before I get into my theory let me make it clear that this blog is not meant to criticize Sachin or appreciate his performance (though I have enjoyed many of his marvelous innings rite from my childhood days), this is purely for Science and adventure enthusiasts and this article sees Sachin through a Economist's eye.

After the marvelous double century by Sachin against South Africa I was impressed by the way media portrayed him. He is treated like God in our country,
after all he is the best batsman in the world and no doubt about it. For those of you who have a doubt look at his records in test and ODI in the table below.

I believe in god, and I need data for the rest. Keeping this in mind I wanted to know what makes him the “best batsmen” in the world that other top batsman in the world lack? And the best way I could relate his records with others was with data. The methodologies that I have chosen to study his performance is, by picking few of his outstanding records and comparing it with other few top batsmen in the world and analyze what stopped them from doing the same.

Highest ODI score of 200
Sachin scored a double century on his 442nd ODI breaking the record of Saeed Anwar and Charles Coventry’s 194. When I peeped into Saeed Anwar’s statistics it says he managed to score 194 (almost a double century short of 6 runs) out of 247 ODI’s that he has played, which means Sachin had to play 195 more matches than Saeed Anwar to break his record. In terms of probability (observed value by number of chances) Sachin scoring a double century would be 2% where as for Anwar its 4%, 2 times more than Sachin, i.e Anwar had a probability of scoring 2 double centuries if he had played 195 more matches!!!!!!! How about Dhoni whose highest total is just 17 runs short of Sachin (183)? Sachin has played 336 matches more than Dhoni, so Dhoni has a good chance of scoring 3 double centuries (10% probablilty). There are lot many batsmen from Brian Lara to Mark Waugh to Vivan Richards who had a much higher probability of knocking a double century before Sachin but most of them started their carrier at the age of 21 where as Sachin started it at 16 and they all retired soon.
Its not a game of “Survival of the fittest, but arrival of the fittest”. You need to arrive first to survive.

I came across a mail in Time Magzine which tried to praise Sachin, but indirectly they they proved that the only edge Sachin had was he entered the right field at the right time and this is what it said

"When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had not yet won a Grand Slam, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters" But they all are the same in their own sport though they started late!!!

46 ODI hundreds and 93 half centuries.
The very first look on the above table is very impressive, but a bit of calculation put into it reveals a lot. Sachin’s scoring rate goes like this- of all the matches he has played he scores a century 10% of the times and a double century 21% times. Now a similar calculation for Lara says 6% and 21%, for Saeed Anwar its 8% and 17%, for Mark Waugh its 7% and 20% and for Dravid its 4% and 24%. This is how our brain calculates and Sachin tops the list, no doubt about that.
I have just picked Lara and Sachin’s contribution of scores grouped as per the order they came to bat.

In the previous section one crucial factor was completely forgotten. For a player to knock a century or a half century, the order he comes to bat matters a lot. An opener has got entire 50 overs as an opportunity but for those who come post order 2, the opportunity reduces drastically in two ways, if the openers get out late the overs remaining for the batsmen coming 3rd is less, and if they get out soon the pressure on the batsmen coming down the order is high. Hence either ways openers have an edge and when we compare Sachin’s and Lara’s batting position, Lara has played 80% of the innings on the 3rd, 4th or 5th position whereas Sachin has been an opener 80% of the times. This explains the competitive edge of Sachin over Lara which increases his chances of scoring a century by 4% over Lara’s 6%. But scoring a half century is easier than a century for a batsman coming down between 3rd to 5th position, hence Lara equals Sachin (21% half centuries).

DPMO – Defects per Million Opportunity
This is a Six Sigma terminology which tells us how many defects a process would produce out of 1 Million transactions or Opportunities. Every match Sachin plays is an Opportunity to score a half century or a century and let me define a defect as match in which Sachin fails to score a century or a half century. Out of the 442 matches he has played a. He has 46 centuries and 93 half centuries in his name (total of 139) and his DPMO would be 685520 which means, if Sachin plays 1 million matches he would not score a century or a half century in 685520 of the matches. Now if we look into the DMPO of Brian Lara, its 728187, Saeed Anwar – 744939 and Mark Waugh- 721311. So far so good for Sachin!!! Now if we keep Sachin’s “685520” as the benchmark, what it takes for Saeed Anwar, Lara or M Waugh to reach that? Brian lara had to play just 14 defect free matches or he should have played 19 more matches before he retired, Anwar should have play just 14 defect free matches or played 23 more matches before he retired and M Waugh had to play just 8 defect free matches of should hav played 12 more matches before he retired!!. I feel all the three batsmen could have met either of the criteria’s easily, but what stopped them from doing it?
My theory goes like this, my definition of a defect is scoring a half century or a century, and it has got nothing to do with the end team total figure (which is what is most required for a team). If a single system is meeting its metric ignoring the end metric for the firm it’s no good for a firm. Eg just imagine a machine producing the output at its maximum capacity with “zero defects” during “recission” when the firm is struggling to sell its inventory!! It means the system is not flexible, or the machine’s metric is not aligned with the firm’s end metric. Dravid has a DPMO of 720000!! Now if we look at the DPMO for the same batsmen in test match, it would be between 30000 to 40000 or 45000. In a test match individual score matters a lot to meet the end number. So the conclusion looking at the Sachin’s DPMO in ODI’s tells us that his focus was a bit more towards playing a defect free match (scoring a half century or a century). Hence compared to all these batsmen, he has very few matching winning innings in his plate. This is just my theory and always debatable.

Sachin and Tour De France
For those of you who do not know about Tour De France, it’s a 21 days cycling event where the cyclists ride approximately 3500 km throughout France and countries around and its divided into 21 stages. Riders are judged by the time each has taken throughout the race and it is possible to win without winning a single stage, as Greg LeMond did in 1990. In 2009, the winner received €450,000, while each of the 21 stage winners won €8,000, the difference between the winner and a single stage winner is €442,000 and also the respect that a stage winner gets is no way comparable to that of a tour winner. Lance Armstrong has won the Tour 7 times consecutively, and surprisingly the maximum stage races he won was 5 in the year 2004 and least being 1 in 2000. Every stage is an opportunity and every race stage they loose is a defect. Now Lance’s average DPMO is 850000. A person who win’s all the stage races will get €168,000000. This clearly proves that Lance is least interested in winning €168,000000 but is more interested in winning €450,000!!!!! Strange!!.
The entire world works on incentives, from Sachin to Lance Armstrong. Monetary benefit is one kind of incentive and the other kind of benefit is “recognition”. People like Lance Armstrong and Sachin play for this kind of incentive. Sachin would not be recognized if he had performance statics like Brian Lara or Saeed Anwar, and the same implies to Lance Armstrong, he will not be recognized if he had maximum stage wins. So who would get benefitted if Sachin scores a half century or a century? Sponsorers!! The requirement of a sponsor is a person who remains on the top for a longer period of time (a match winner can never be ranked as its hard to measure) and his job is directly or indirectly linked to the end product. Next question would be, is Sachin’s incentive based on the number of sponsor he has got? Nope, the sponsors will portray him as an expert in that pirticular domain in front of media and the viewers need more of what they potrey and as I said Sachin’s major incentive is recognition he will start playing for what fulfills his best interest. His fans respect him for the records he has got and as per the laws of economics he will start working more towards his records than his team's records. The same logic implies even to Lance Armstrong, he was a cancer survivor and he could see a big picture yielding a bigger incentive for him if he could win the Tour De France and he started concentrating more on that than on a monetary benefit. A monetary benefit will not interest a cancer survivor.

Conclusion
There is nothing to conclude. It was just my analysis and as I said its always debatable. This blog is neither for nor against any of the sportsmen or sports. I am just trying to find the intention and interests of people based on data. So I feel its more of understanding science than people.