You might begin to wonder what’s this all about ! You might begin to get curious as what’s this all about, and what has it (MAKING A CRICKET BALL AND AN ORGANIZATION) got to do with your life – at least professional life. Well read on and see what you can unfold. Let us first get straight to the making of the not LESS than 156 g (5.5 oz) or MORE than 163 g (5.75 oz) “cherry.” That gets hurled through the 20 m (66 ft) long and about 3 m (10 ft) wide strip, which beats the best, which also gets beaten by the best. Cricket Ball: Has a “kernel” which is the “core,” if you may wish to call. It is a spherical corky-wooden-soft nut, much like the nut of a ‘oak.’ Solid but not unbreakable, needs a big hammer to crack it.

Organization : Now take the case of an organization which also believes in having a “core.” Most well run organizations have a solid “core,” not unbreakable again but it needs terrific effort for anyone to break it. Cricket Ball: The “core” of the ball is made of alternating layers of cork and wool layer after layer. Organization : The management team the middle level, the junior level and then the juniors are all bound layer by layer by “values, trust, integrity, honest, sincerity, purpose …etc Cricket Ball: When the wrap attains a size not larger than 23 cm (9 in) in circumference, it gets covered with four pieces of leather, shaped like orange quarters, sewn together along an equatorial seam. The stitching is raised lightly. It then gets dyed usually red and polished to obtain the shine. Organization : When the core gets wrapped to a certain wieldy size it gets sewn up by “policies” and “culture” then a lot of transmission takes place between everyone in the organization to make it “shine” Cricket Ball: When the ball gets ready it has to pass through a “Ball Gauge,” an insturment used by the umpires in the game to check whether the size of the cricket ball meets the standard measurements mandated by the Laws of Cricket. It is usually in the form some what like a pair of “hand-cuffs” with two connected rings: one ring has a minimum acceptable diameter, through which the ball should not pass and the other ring has the maximum acceptable diameter through which the ball should pass. If the ball cannot pass through mninimum diameter, or passes through the minimum diameter, or becomes mis-shapen, the umpires should replace the ball. The replacement ball is ideally an old ball which was used in some match before for a comparable number of overs as the ball being replaced, so that it has had approximatly the same amount of use and wear as the old ball. Organization : Any organization after formation passes through a severe test for survival. It can’t afford to be too aggressive nor can it afford to be less aggressive. And it has the various governing bodies that keep monitoring whether the guidelines provided are followed and that there are no violations. Only here it differs from the ball as one organization which falters doesn’t get replaced by another, but it has to be formed all over again. Cricket Ball: You need to practice hard, train well to learn how to use the “cherry” to do well game after game, consistently to attain the heights of the greats that played the game, and well too. What Kapil Dev, Richard Hadlee, Muthiah Muralidharan, Anil Kumble, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Imran Khan, and the list goes on endlessly, do is to stick hard to the basics of “line and length.” It is because they do this time and time again and put their heart and soul into game applying “focus and concentration,” that results speak for themselves and these people became as great as they did or do… Organization : People in the growing “organization” have to work hard, and put to use all that they learnt through their education from the school to the highest professional degree each goes to attain. They practice “fair play” and look after everyone with care.

What Narayan Murthy, Azim Premji, Tata, Birla’s, list goes on endlessly and the so many successful leaders of successful organization, do is to stick hard to the basics of “line - “values, trust, integrity, honest, sincerity, purpose and length the longevity .” It is because they do this time and time again and put their heart and soul into the enterprise applying “focus and concentration,” that results speak for themselves and these people became as great as they did or do… Finally A Cricket Ball: Very hard from the “outside” and “soft” from the inside “core” Finally An Organization: Very hard from the “outside” because they have to succeed and show results and “soft” from the inside “core” because they are all human being behind the whole thing. So that’s that – the “Makings of a Cricket ball” and the “Makings of an Organization” don't they have a few significant and striking similarites.

Author : R Bharadwaj