Is Sachin Tendulkar the greatest schoolboy cricketer ever? Twenty years ago, a fresh-faced youngster was being hailed as the next big thing.

Twenty years ago, a fresh-faced youngster was being hailed as the next big thing. Would he play for India, the cognoscenti asked themselves

Author's(Harsha Bhogale) note: This piece was written 21 years ago for Sportsworld magazine (and was only retrieved thanks to Mudar Patherya, who was a young cricket writer then). Sachin Tendulkar was 15, a year and a half away from playing Test cricket and four months short of his first-class debut. I was not yet 27, in an advertising job out of business school, with one Test match and a handful of one-dayers on Doordarshan behind me. We were both looking ahead in our own spheres. What a time it was, it was, a time of innocence...

	"Once I get set, I don't think of anything"

All of Bombay's maidans are a stage. Where every cricketer has a role to play. And his seems to be the blockbuster. Ever since he unveiled Act One early last year, audiences have been waiting, a little too eagerly at times, to watch the next scene. Sachin Tendulkar is only, so far, acting in a high-school production. Yet critics have gone to town. And rave reviews have not stopped coming in.

I guess it can only happen in Bombay. That a schoolboy cricketer sometimes becomes the talk of the town. Why, at the end of every day's play in the final of Bombay's Harris Shield (for Under 17s) everybody wanted to know how many he had made. For he does bat three days sometimes! And for all the publicity he has received, Sachin Tendulkar is really still a kid. He only completed 15 on 24 April. And is very shy. Opening out only after you have coaxed him for some time. As his coach Mr Achrekar says, "Aata thoda bolaila laglai" [He's started talking a bit now]. And it's then that you realise that his voice has not yet cracked.

His record is awesome. He has scored far more runs than all of us scored looking dreamily out of the window in a boring Social Studies class when we were his age.

For a prodigy, he started late. When he was nine years old. And it was only in 1984-85 that he scored his first school-level fifty. But 1985-86 was a little better. He scored his first Harris Shield hundred and played for Bombay in the Vijay Merchant (Under-15) tournament. And 1986-87 was when he blossomed. Still only 13, he led his school, Shardashram Vidyamandir, to victory in the Giles Shield (for Under-15s). He scored three centuries - 158*, 156 and 197 - and then in the Harris Shield scored 276, 123 and 150. In all, he scored nine hundreds, including two double hundreds, a total of 2336 runs.

By now everyone had begun to sit up and take notice. The beginning of the 1987-88 season saw Sachin at the Ranji nets. Once again the top players were away playing Tests and perhaps the Bombay selectors felt it wouldn't be a bad idea to give Sachin first-hand experience of a higher category of cricket. He was named in the 14 for the first couple of games, and manager Sandeep Patil kept sending him out whenever possible - for a glass of water or a change of gloves. All along Sachin probably knew that he was still at best a curiosity, and that while Bombay was giving him every blooding opportunity, he had to prove himself on the maidans.

And that is exactly what he did. Season 1987-88 was a purple patch that never ended. Playing in the Vijay Merchant tournament he scored 130 and 107 and then at the Inter-Zonal stage he made 117 against the champions, East Zone. Then in the Vijay Hazare tournament (for Under-17s) he scored 175 for West Zone against champions East Zone.

Then came the avalanche. A 178* in the Giles Shield and a sequence in the Harris Shield of 21*, 125, 207*, 329* and 346*! A small matter of 1028 runs in five innings! And in the course of that innings of 329* he set the much talked-about record of 664 for the third wicket with Vinod Kambli, who, it is not always realised, scored 348*. Perhaps the most fascinating of them all was the innings of 346*. Coming immediately, as it did, in the shadow of the world record, a lot of people were curious to see him bat. Sachin ended the first day on 122, batted through the second to finish with 286, and when the innings closed around lunch on the third day, he was 346*. And then came back to bowl the first ball. In April's Bombay summer.

	"People don't realise that he is just 15. They keep calling him for some felicitation or the other. The other day he was asked to inaugurate a children's library. This is ridiculous. These things are bound to go to his head. He will start thinking he has achieved everything." Tendulkar's coach, Ramakant Achrekar

But when did this story begin? Like all children, Tendulkar took to playing "galli" cricket. His brother Ajit was a good player and persuaded Mr Achrekar, probably Bombay's most famous coach, to look at him. Achrekar recalls, "When he first came to my net four-five years ago, he looked just like any other boy and I didn't take him seriously. Then one day I saw him bat in an adjacent net. He was trying to hit every ball but I noted that he was middling all of them. Some time later he got a fifty and a friend of mine, who was umpiring that game, came and told me that this boy would play for India. I laughed at him and said that there were so many boys like him in my net. But he insisted. 'Mark my words, he will play for India.' My friend is dead now but I'm waiting to see if his prophecy comes true.'

Tendulkar is taking first steps towards getting there. He discovered that his house, being in Bandra, would not allow him to be at Shivaji Park whenever he wanted. He now spends most of his time at his uncle's house, just off this nursery of Bombay cricket. When he is not actually playing, that is.

Quite often, he is playing all day; important because it has helped him build the stamina to play long innings. "I don't get tired," he says, referring to them. "If you practise every day, you get used to it."

And what about that world-record innings? "I could bat very freely then because my partner Vinod Kambli was batting so well that I knew that even if I failed, he would get enough runs for the side."

Isn't there a lot of pressure on him now? Everyone assumes he will get a big score? "Only in the beginning. Till I get set. Once I get set, I don't think of anything."

Wasn't he thrilled at being invited to the Ranji nets? "Definitely. After playing there I got a lot of confidence."

Everything in Tendulkar's life has so far revolved around cricket. Including his choice of school. A few years back he shifted to Shardashram Vidyamandir, only so that he could come under the eye of Achrekar. "It helped me tremendously because 'sir's' guidance is so good," he says.

Strangely his parents were never very keen about cricket. His brother Ajit says, "They were not very interested in the game, though they gave him all the encouragement. You see, in our colony all parents were training their children to be engineers and doctors. And they would say, "Gallit khelun cricketer hoto kai?" [You don't become a cricketer by playing in the alleys]. I am so happy he is doing well because now people think he is doing something."

The question that arises then, given all the publicity is: Just how good is Sachin Tendulkar?

"For his age, unbelievable," says Sharad Kotnis, Bombay's veteran cricket watcher. "He is definitely comparable to Ashok Mankad, who had a similar run many years ago. But remember Ashok had cricket running in his family and his father often came to see him play. I think Tendulkar's strongest point is that he is willing to work very hard."

Luckily for Sachin, there is a calming influence over him, just so he doesn't get carried away by this acclaim. His coach Achrekar knows exactly what he is talking about. "He is not perfect yet. Far from it. In fact, I would say he is not even halfway there. He still has a lot of faults, particularly while driving through the on, which is an indicator of a class batsman. He still has a long way to go, but what I like about him is his ability to work hard. I don't think we should get carried away by his scores. After all, one has to take into account the nature of the wicket and the quality of the bowlers. By his standards the quality of the bowling he faced was not good enough.

"His real test will come this year when he plays in the 'A' Division of the Kanga League. [Sachin will play for the Cricket Club of India, which for him has waived the stipulation that children under 18 are not allowed inside the Club House!] He should get 70s and 80s there and not just 20s and 30s; particularly towards the end of the season, when the wickets get better."

	Tendulkar as a wee thing with coach Ramakant Achrekar

Achrekar, in fact, is quite upset about the publicity Sachin is getting. "People don't realise that he is just 15. They keep calling him for some felicitation or the other. The other day he was asked to inaugurate a children's library. This is ridiculous. These things are bound to go to his head. He will start thinking he has achieved everything. I hope all this stops so he can concentrate and work hard."

Yet both Achrekar and Kotnis agree on when they think Sachin will become a Ranji regular. "I think he should be playing the Ranji Trophy next year. I think it is unfair to compare him to the [Lalchand] Rajputs and [Alan] Sippys yet, but I think he should play next year," feels Kotnis. And Achrekar adds, "Inspite of what I said about him, if he maintains this kind of progress, he should play the Ranji next year."

Clearly the curtain call is still a long way off for Sachin Tendulkar. He has a lot of things going for him. Most importantly he is in Bombay, where the sheer atmosphere can propel him ahead. In how many cities would a 15-year-old be presented a Gunn and Moore by the Indian captain? And in which other city would the world's highest run-getter write to a 15-year-old asking him not to get disheartened at not getting the Best Junior Cricketer award?

Sunil Gavaskar wrote to Tendulkar to tell him that several years earlier another youngster too had not got the award and that he didn't do too badly in Test cricket. For him the letter from his hero is a prized possession. Another great moment was a meeting with him where "… he told me that I should forget the past every time I go to bat. I should always remember that I have to score runs each time."

He is in the right company. And the right environment. The next few years will show whether he has it in him the mental toughness to overcome the over-exposure. If it does not go to his head, surely there is a great future beckoning. This is really just the beginning and I will be watching this little star with avid interest for the next three years.

If he is still charting blockbusters, I'd love to do another review then.

Harsha Bhogle is a commentator, television presenter and writer. This article was first published in Sportsworld magazine in 1988

Your bank deposit helps keep real estate prices up.

We live in a strange world.

Millions in India would like to buy homes to live in.
Or offices for setting up a new venture.
Or shops for starting a business.

But buying real estate - or renting it - is still way beyond our means.
So we save our money in safe places waiting for that wonderful day when we can buy that home we need.
Or the office for the new venture we wish to start.
Or the shop for the new business we wish to start.

One of the places where we park our money is in bank deposits.
Much of it is parked in the PSU banks - the public sector banks that are owned by the government of India.
According to data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), PSU banks account for 74% of the total bank deposits in the country.
Well, what does the PSU bank do with all our money?
They do what all banks are supposed to do: lend it on to someone else at a higher price (the lending rate). The difference between the lending rate and the borrowing cost (what the banks pays you for your deposits or what it may pay other banks and companies to borrow money) is a margin that needs to cover all the salaries and costs of maintaining a branch.

No harm in that. None at all: that is the business of all banks whether PSU or private banks. If there was no profit in the banks, we would not have any banks. That would be a problem. So banks which lend money to others and earn a good return on it are a good thing to have around.

Immerse yourself in 2008
But there is something interesting in the RBI data on what banks have done with your deposit money.
But, before we head there - we need to remind ourselves where the world was in December 2008.
Lehman Brothers had gone bust in September 2008. Merrill Lynch had to be rescued by Bank of America in a shotgun marriage arranged by the US government. AIG had to be bailed out.

While most Indian banks were healthy, there were concerns that a few banks (which had relied on excessive foreign lines of credit for their excessive growth) may not have money to repay their foreign loans and needs to be "rescued" by the RBI.

Indian companies, in general, had borrowed about USD 20 billion from foreign banks and investors. This USD 20 billion included what Tata Motors had borrowed for its acquisition of Jaguar, or the working capital borrowing by an Indian company using "cheaper" foreign money to invest in its Indian businesses. By October 2008, the foreign banks were told to send all their money back to "home country". Their parent banks were in trouble and they needed all the money back in safe US government or UK or Euro government bonds. Foreign banks were not only refusing to lend any new money to any Indian company, but they wanted all the loans that were falling due returned. They refused to "revolve" or extend the loans.
Too add doom to the gloom, many mutual funds were holding debt issued by Indian real estate companies and these companies were not able to repay this debt.
The Indian companies had parked their surplus cash with these mutual funds. They now wanted it back (to repay their foreign bank loans or for use in their own operations), and the mutual funds could not repay it.
Ouch!
The Indian stock markets were collapsing. And the general consensus (uh, not from me) was that the Indian stock market could head as low as 4,000 to 6,000 levels from the 8,000 levels of the BSE 30 Index.
And the final knock-out punch: the sale of shares by foreign investors (uh, speculators will be more accurate) to the extent of Rs 70,000 crore and the act of converting this into US Dollars led to a decline of about -30% in the Indian rupee in the year 2008.
Even the sweet and normally confident anchors on TV channels looked like Rakhi Sawant - one day after being with a child. The financial newspapers stopped publishing photographs of attractive models to add colour to their India fantasy stories. That, then, was the India we were in.

December 2008.

Please roll back your mind to that period. And add the spice: there was an election coming up. Which many believed (eh, not me) could take India into the bullock cart age.
Rescue me! Let's take a quick peek at what was happening to real estate developers.

People had stopped buying real estate. Salaries were being held back - the days of the guaranteed 25% annual increase were over. Jobs were at risk. Offices were empty. Businesses were closing down. Real estate developers were about to go bust. They were desperate for cash. There was no money inflow from the sale of real estate. But there were debts to be repaid. And the real estate developers also had payment obligations for all the land that they had agreed to buy as they went about building their "land banks".
In this environment, what were the PSU banks doing?

They were pretty busy lending money for real estate.

Table 1: Your friendly neighbourhood bank is here J

in Rs Millions	May 29,2009	May 23,2008	May 29,2007
Loans given (excludes agriculture loans)	25,582,500	21,747,670	17,515,780
Real estate loans by all banks	944,990	621,780	451,600
Real estate loans to total loans given by banks	3.7%	2.9%	2.6%
Growth in real estate loans	52%	38%
Growth in total loans (excludes agriculture loans)	18%	24%

Source: RBI data
Between May 23, 2008 and May 29, 2009 the loans given by banks (excluding the loans it makes for agriculture) grew by +18% - from Rs 21,747,670 million to Rs 25,582,500 million.
But the loans given to real estate grew by +52% - from Rs 621,780 million to Rs 944,990 million.
This period is for May 2008 to May 2009 - in a few weeks we will get data for the period October 2009 over October 2008. That data will probably be more telling.
Global credit markets froze after Lehman's collapse and the "growth" in loans may be more than what this "older" data shows. But even this "old" data shows the huge rescue of the real estate developers.
It should be noted that "loans to real estate" does not include the loans made to individuals who borrow money to purchase their homes. Those mortgage loans grew by 5% confirming the data from the real estate industry that home-buying has slowed down considerably.
According to industry estimates (and a research report by a foreign stock-broking house), the growth in the number of new homes sold in 5 cities (Bangalore, Bombay, Chennai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad) has declined. Between April, May, and June of 2008 there were 15,000 units sold in these 5 cities. This works out to an average of 33 units per day per city. From then on it went into a tailspin and reached the low level of 5,000 units for the period January, February, and March of 2009. This works out to an average of 11 units per day per city.
It has since picked up - mostly in Bombay - to an estimated 9,000 units for the 3-month period July, August, and September 2009. This works out to an average of 20 units per day per city.
The point is: there was a small growth in homes purchased - so there was no significant growth in loans given to individuals for purchasing real estate. But there was a huge (+52%) increase in loans shown to real estate developers - loans given to keep the real estate companies afloat.
Given that foreign banks were asked to send money back home and not to lend in India, much of this increase in "loans to real estate" was probably made by the Indian banks.
And given that ICICI Bank (the largest) and many other Indian private sector banks were being careful and re-assessing the risks they had taken in many previous loans, the chunk of the "loans to real estate" must be from the PSU banks.

Your bank deposit, helps keep real estate prices up!

So, there it is:
You wish to buy real estate but are waiting for it to decline to a price that you can afford to pay. Stock prices jump around too much so, correctly, you don't wish to put your idle money in stock markets because you may need the money at anytime to buy real estate.
Your bank deposit is with the PSU bank.
The banks have used your money to give it as a loan to real estate developers. Their act of giving the loan to real estate developers gives them badly needed cash.The real estate developers no longer need to sell their real estate to get "cash flow" to stay alive. They got the money from the banks. Now, the real estate developers can charge you a higher price for real estate. They can sell it on their terms. Their terms, of course, are to make a 100% to 300% profit from you.
So, if the calculations in Table 1 above are correct, then the loans to real estate developers were about Rs 323,210 million or Rs 32,321 crore.

Table 2: The British taxed our salt; the powerful "tax" our real estate

	May 29,2009
Growth in real estate loans, in past one year (Rs million)	323,210
Avg cost of construction (Rs/sq ft)	2,000
Square feet financed (millions)	161.61
Avg property size, sq ft	1,000
No of homes denied, directly	161,605

These Rs 32,321 crore was - from a cash flow perspective - the equivalent of selling 161,605 homes of 1,000 sq ft each.
So, some 161,605 homes that would otherwise have to be sold by the real estate developers to generate cash flow for the developers (to match the loans they got from the banks) have not come to the market to be sold.
Instead, an estimated 34,000 homes were sold for the 12 months ending May 2009.
And property prices had fallen by -20% to -30%.
What would happen to real estate prices if banks had NOT given these loans (from your deposit money) and if 161,605 homes had to be sold in the 12 months ending May 2009?

The 161,605 homes that did not come to the market are 4.8 times the homes that were sold in the 5 cities in that same time period.

You saw what happened when foreign investors sold Rs 70,000 crore of stocks?
The BSE-30 Index collapsed from 20,500 to a level of 8,000.
A decline of -69%.
But real estate developers have a friendly banker.
That is why property prices have fallen "only" by -20% and are now heading up again!

So, why this sudden friendship?

Well, we had a national election coming up. Politicians possibly need money to fight elections. Though this may be a coincidence. And then many politicians - across political parties - possibly have someone they know from their family in the real estate business.
And they needed to rescue them. The foreign banks stepped out, the Indian banks stepped in. The governments control the PSU banks. A suggestion, a nudge, a wink, or a phone call is all it takes. And a little bit of your money. Just a little bit.
Rs 323,310 million of extra money that went to the real estate developers is only 1% of the total bank deposits in the country.

What's a little 1% between friends?

But it is sufficient to ensure that real estate prices may not fall to levels that are affordable for you.
For the aam aadmi that every Finance Minister and every government and every politician is so worried about.

Mahatma Gandhi walked to the sea and made his own salt.
The politicians were all there to pay homage to the great soul on October 2nd.
Dressed in their white khadi and solemn faces.

Like the Mahatma, you can protest, too.

Walk up to your neighbourhood bank branch manager and ask him, "How much of my bank deposit in your bank is going to fund real estate developers who then keep prices so high that I cannot afford to buy real estate?"

Maybe you wish to give your deposit to a bank that only gives real estate loans to individuals who buy homes or offices or shops?
You can deal with banks that refuse to give money to real estate developers.
This small act will force the real estate developers to sell those 161,605 homes that they would need to sell to pay back the loans from your bank deposits.

And then you can buy your real estate at a more "real" price.

Finance remains a very corrupt business, in my humble opinion.
As does real estate.

So, where does that leave the financing of real estate in the ranking tables of corrupt businesses?

I wonder, I really do.....

'Sachin was quite a prankster'

This is taken from an article on http://www.indiatimes.com

For most of them, Sachin Tendulkar remains the boy-next-door. Only that they lead different lives. They are members of Sachin Tendulkar's first playing eleven who got together every evening in the serene settings of Sahitya Sahwas — also known as the abode of Maharashtra's famous literatures — to put bat to ball much before he became a cult figure. The boys, who obviously are among his biggest admirers, remember him as much for his cricketing feats as they do for his childhood antics. "He loved to pick up a fight," says Sunil Harshe, Sachin's senior in school. "Every time I introduced him to somebody in school, his first reaction was, will I be able to beat him?

Invariably, if one entered the class during the recess, he would be fighting." He also had a weakness for spinning yarns, remembers another friend Satyajit Anekar. "Once when he had cut his finger he said it was because he tried to touch a helicopter that had flown over his terrace, which had emerged between two adjacent buildings. And he went on to tell us how he had bled buckets!"

Harshe says he was equally good at tennis and was a big fan of John McEnroe. "We started off playing without racquets. I still remember how happy we were when we brought our first racquets. In fact, there was a time when I believed he would turn out to be a good tennis player. But look what he has turned out to be," muses Harshe, who incidentally was the first captain Sachin played under during the inter-colony soft-ball matches.
Academics was never his cup of tea. He loved the outdoors so much his maid Laxmibai had to run around to feed him. But Little Sachin never forgot to share his meals with the colony watchman's son, Ramesh Pardhe, who was a regular companion.

Pardhe distinctly remembers Sachins cricketing acumen. "We used to often play on the terrace. One day I saw him carry a bucket of water to the terrace. He asked me to dip the rubber ball in water and then hurl the ball at him. He would then see the marks the wet ball made on the bat and know whether he had middled the ball correctly.."
Another fascination for Sachin were band-aids. Any semblance of a wound would make him rush for the band-aid strip, says Pardhe. He was an expert at sticking it with one hand.

The cricketing turnaround happened soon. Everything started to change once he joined Shardashram High School. Once he began representing Shardashram he had this immense self-belief that he could make it in cricket, says Anekar. Much has changed since, but Sachhu continues to be the same for the entire neighbourhood, even though he no longer lives there.

India, China, and Obama's oil policy

Over the past year there has been an ever-quickening drumbeat of dire news about oil. Predictions of $250 barrel super-spikes, declining global supplies, and the potential for energy wars made headline news.

In the US, high prices at the pump became a leading campaign issue and a very real driver of inflationary fears. That inflationary pressure forced the emerging giants, India and China, to tighten monetary policy, which in turn constrained economic growth. But while oil will indeed come to an end as the primary energy supply for the global economic engine, it will most likely go out with a whimper and not a roar.

Putting the global recession aside for the moment, the premise always has been: Global dependence on oil is a reality, and demand is increasing at a steady rate primarily driven by the economic growth of India and China. Concurrently, new sources of oil are increasingly difficult and costly to find. So using the basic principle of supply and demand, we should conclude that oil prices will continue to increase without any end in sight, correct?
Not exactly. First and foremost, there is the issue of supply. During the next two to three years, Iraq's oil production will increase by 3.5 million barrels per day, adding 4 per cent to the global supply. Production from new fields in Angola and Brazil is expected to add an additional 1 million to 2 million barrels per day during the same time.

Precarious dependence on foreign oil
But additional production is not what will cause oil to retreat quietly. The end of oil may have begun with the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Barack Obama. His Presidency heralds, among other things, the rapid development of the most comprehensive energy policy that the world has ever seen.
Currently the US consumes 19.6 million barrels of oil per day - 25 per cent of the world's total consumption. The US also produces one-fourth of the world's carbon emissions, more than any other country on earth. Equally alarming is the fact that the US imports 10.2 million barrels of oil per day, creating an unsustainable and strategically precarious dependence on foreign oil.
This situation is about to change faster than most expect. The new Obama Administration will soon unveil a comprehensive energy strategy that will focus on energy independence, renewable energy, and the rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The timing may be fortuitous as the US economy deals with the impact of poor fiscal and financial oversight, an automobile industry on the brink of collapse, massive expenditures in Iraq, and a workforce that has pushed into the low-value service-industry sector.

Millions of new green jobs
This current economic plight has created a scenario in which the American public is ready, willing, and able to get behind a far-reaching and, in many ways, revolutionary energy strategy. The key elements of this strategy will include massive investment in renewable energy, including wind and solar; a rapid retooling of the US automobile industry to manufacture highly fuel-efficient vehicles with a bias toward plug-ins; the creation of a digital electrical grid; investments in high-speed rail; and an aggressive carbon cap-and-trade program.
These investments will create millions of high-value, green jobs that cannot be outsourced, and while the impact of this program will be felt across the board, one of its most measurable short- to medium-term effects will be the rapid decrease in the importing of foreign oil.

Specifically, in 2010 the US will begin reducing foreign oil consumption by 10% per year, equal to roughly 1 million barrels a day. That's more than $30 billion in reduced capital outflows in the first year alone, welcome news considering our current balance of trade.

But that's only a small part of the story. The Obama Administration plans to create a cartel of oil-importing nations that will include India and China. This group will share technology, processes, and strategy with the stated goal of eliminating the group's dependence on foreign oil.

The importance of this move cannot be overstated. India and China are keenly aware that their economies are increasingly becoming dependent on oil from volatile regions. We can expect this new group to move to aggressively share technology that will reduce the use of fossil fuels. That technology will be driven by innovation that is becoming more global with the rapid development of advanced battery technology, photovoltaic solar panels, wind turbine systems, and biofuels.

Lower demand will lead to change
The end of oil will be met with some resistance. There are many vested interests that would like to see our dependence continue. However, that resistance will be no match for the economic and strategic pressure aligned against it. In the short term our energy independence strategy, like the Manhattan Project or the Apollo program, will help pull the US economy out of a recession while creating continuous downward pressure on oil prices.
Low oil prices will further reduce the threat of inflation - high oil prices fuel higher food costs - and a reduced threat of inflation will allow central banks to maintain an easing of monetary policy. This will be welcome news to India and China. Low inflation will equate directly to an increase in GDP growth and domestic consumption for them.

And what will be the longer-term consequences of this energy revolution? As demand wanes and prices continue to remain low, significant economic and social stress will begin to be seen in the various oil dictatorships such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Ultimately this will lead to regime change and social upheaval in many of these countries.
For the US, India, China, and the other oil-importing nations, the oil-producing regions will become far less relevant. Clearly there will be challenges along the way, but in the end oil will go quietly with nothing more than a whimper.

William Nobrega is president and founder of the Conrad Group, an emerging-market strategic planning and M&A facilitation firm based in Miami. He has more than 10 years experience in this field and is widely credited for initiating global business models in emerging geographies including Brazil, India, and China. He is co-author of the recently published book, Riding the Indian Tiger: Understanding India, the World's Fastest Growing Market.

What a year it has been!

The year began with a family feud that threatened to tear apart our tiny community. It ended with two events of utter warmth, of romance and brotherhood.

In between, a child attained adulthood and some elders saw it as a threat, a mystery spinner enriched the sport and sadly the spectre of violence engulfed cricket. And yes, just to remind people of the treasure we possess, Sachin Tendulkar began and ended the year with a century! We were not short of action!

The events at the Sydney Cricket Ground were immensely forgettable. Teams raged against each other, supporters seemed to take up arms and allegations of racism were in the air. It seemed, on the surface at least, that it was a cricketing issue, umpires might have got it wrong and the definition of the spirit of the game grew increasingly far-fetched, but it soon grew into a much bigger problem. The match referee was a fine cricketer but not very well versed with the law and it needed an excellent piece of judgement from a New Zealand judge to resolve matters.

India threatened to pull-out, a stupid story of a plane being on stand-by did the rounds and none of us really knew what to expect next. It was a grievous wound for it struck at the heart of the only real link between two countries. Hopefully Australia will sell uranium and India will provide fine software engineers, but until that happens regularly, cricket will continue to be the only real bond between our nations. Sydney must never happen again; a blot on the game associated with one of its most beautiful cities. We are too small for a schism.

But the game is such a beautiful healer. Just over three months later Andrew Symonds, at the centre of the whole affair, was being welcomed with Hyderabadi biryani, Mathew Hayden and Michael Hussey were being cheered in Chennai and Shane Warne could have won an election in Jaipur! The IPL was the marketing and cricketing event of the year; both are important for one cannot survive without the other. Clearly T20 will be the new missionary of the game, spreading it to lands where traditional Test cricket, or even one-day internationals, cannot enter. It needs to be looked upon as an opportunity, but the ICC responded by looking upon it as a threat to Test cricket. It is inexplicable. We step on our own toes sometimes.

The last fortnight of the year was proof of the fact that in our effort to protect Test cricket, we underestimate its potency. We look upon every new trend like a commercial liner would a boat in Somalia - we assume there are pirates everywhere. I watch a children's talent show on TV every week and am stunned by how nine and twelve year olds sing classical based songs and old melodies. Surely they should have known only remixes or computer generated sounds! So too with Test cricket which grew, and became stronger, in 2008. It will hold its own in the new world unless we obsess over it. But if we shut our windows and keep the fresh air out, we will grow weak.

Virender Sehwag is an example of how one form of the game needn't cannibalise another. Seemingly made for T20, he led one of the finest run-chases in the history of Test cricket. And Sachin Tendulkar provided the game one of its warmest, most beautiful moments by scoring a fine hundred and then putting the innings, and indeed cricket, in perspective by speaking eloquently of the atmosphere in which it was played. It was a series that may not, need not, have been played but England showed a largeness of heart that cricket must never forget. What a lovely change from England teams of my growing up years that moaned, complained and spoke condescendingly about the people that were hosting them. In one gesture, England made more friends than they could have imagined.

And a week later the second highest run chase was achieved. At the end a wonderfully gifted white man had produced a fine century and a shy, inexperienced black man had played with great maturity. As AB de Villiers and JP Duminy embraced, the power and magnificence of sport blossomed again. Don't forget the new South Africa is only fifteen years old and it isn't yet fifty years since Martin Luther King's rousing cry at the Lincoln Memorial for equality of black and white.It was as beautiful an end to the year as we could have hoped for.

New Year resolutions of cricket icons

New Year resolutions for some of our rich and famous cricketing icons.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

I hereby resolve to make less of a fuss over my personal security. I understand the environment has changed in the country in the wake of 26/11 and that as a role model I must not encourage the building up of a Jharkhand army just to insulate me from my fans. I am no politician who needs to be protected from the very people he represents.I also resolve not to make a fuss over selection, particularly when it comes to assessing my pals who may be great touring companions but who also have to perform to justify their place in the team. I will not carry players as part of my personal baggage as captain, nor will I threaten to resign when my wishes are not fulfilled.

Gautam Gambhir

I will not convert cricket into football with my attitude of getting into the face of my opponents. I know I am not Marco Materazzi defending against the likes of Zinedine Zidane. I promise to keep my elbow out of play. I know a mild attitude change will enable me to be a better human being while I try to keep up my batting form of 2007 in which I took my first steps towards becoming a great cricketer.

Virender Sehwag

I wish to continue to be myself. I may have started my career as a Sachin clone but today I am Virender and no one else. The best way I can repay those who kept faith with my adventurous batting style during the lean times is to continue to bat in that aggressive vein with just that bit of concern to give myself that chance to succeed with consistency so that the team can win, as I did with that innings in Chennai. I also resolve to wipe off the last vestige of captaincy ambitions. That is not my job.

Rahul Dravid

I will not let my batting get into that analysis paralysis again. People have been very patient with my form when they could so easily have condemned my continuous presence at one drop. I promise to be honest with myself when it comes to accepting when my time is up.And 2009 is not the time to go around saying that I have answered my critics when I make centuries at a strike rate of 40. I also promise to be more dynamic as a captain in the T-20 version of the game even if it is not my cup of tea.

Sachin Tendulkar

I resolve to bat on with a high emotional quotient in the memory of those who lost their lives so tragically to terror attacks. If I play a few more innings in the New Year as I did at Chepauk atthe end of the old, I know I can help India fulfill the great ambition of becoming the number one side in the world. The time has long gone when I should have any personal goalposts to move. All the runs I make will be in the team cause but it is not as if I needed a troubled British bank to tell me what I must do for my national team.

Yuvraj Singh

I stand on the threshold of true greatness where I can be as good a Test batsman as I am a limited-overs cricketer. I don't need to get into squabbles with England greats like KP and Flintoff in order to prove my dual capacity at the crease. As another year is gone, I know it is time to buckle down and mature fast so that I serve Team India even more with the bat as well as my pie-chucking.

Harbhajan Singh

I know I was lucky in 2008 to have the support of all my colleagues. I may not be able to say honestly that I did not cross the bounds of good behaviour in the Symonds episode as well as in the case of Sreesanth. I resolve to give one interview less in 2009 that I did last year. I refuse to suffer the foot-in-the-mouth disease just because the media keep calling.

The Parallels between Chennai and Perth

For those wondering about the future of Test cricket, the last two matches we have witnessed should clear all doubts. First the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai and then the WACA in Perth provided ten fascinating days of cricket. What's just as remarkable are the similarities between India's run-chase and that of South Africa. So we decided to take a closer look at the numbers and more, to see how alike these two innings' were.

The Plot
1 Both matches were the first game of the series, with teams looking to take an early upper hand.

2)The side that batted first (England in Chennai and Australia in Perth) took a decent first innings lead on the back of some good bowling. England had a 75 run lead while Australia's lead was 94 runs.

3)In the third innings, the teams had similar scores (England 311/9 declared, Australia 319); leaving their opposition a record score to chase- in both cases the highest fourth innings score required to win a match in the host country.

The Characters
1) The Ballistic Batter- In order to chase a big total, you need a great start. India got that from Virender Sehwag, with his squash-buckling innings of 83 which included 15 boundaries (sixes included). South Africa had Graeme Smith, who was not as aggressive but just as effective with a match-winning 108 that included 13 boundaries. In fact, both these men have been the stars with the bat for their sides through 2008. Smith is the highest run-getter this year with 1519 runs while Sehwag is second with 1445 runs.

2) The Able Ally- Sehwag and Smith both needed a calm, sedate partner at the other end. And Gautam Gambhir for India, and Hashim Amla for South Africa played that part to perfection. Both got useful fifties at similar strike-rates, 47.5 for Gambhir and 47.3 for Amla! And really, both have played the ideal supporting role all year long. Amla is South Africa's second highest run-getter with 1112 runs. Gambhir is only fourth for India, but only because he has played fewer Test matches (8) than Laxman (15) and Tendulkar (13). His average, though, is better than the rest.

3) Three down- Both teams had one failure amongst the top three, Neil McKenzie for the Proteas and Rahul Dravid for India. India lost their third wicket with 183 runs on the board, South Africa had scored 179.

4) Elegant Cameo- Truth be told, Jacques Kallis contributed more with the bat than VVS Laxman. But again, both scored fluently and helped stitch a useful partnership when the pressure was on. Kallis' flurry towards the end of Day Four was one of the unnoticed turning points in the match, which gave the visitors the momentum they carried forward to the final day.

5) The Stylish Southpaw- Yuvraj Singh has been around a while, but still had to establish himself in the Test arena. Jean-Paul Duminy was on debut. Both left-handers, with plenty to prove, stuck till the end, scoring unbeaten half centuries to take their sides home. And both delivered the knockout punch. The point one felt sure India would win was when Yuvraj hit that six of Panesar. At the WACA, Duminy's six of Krejza sent similar signals.

6) The Battered Bowlers- Only Andrew Flitnoff and Graeme Swann (three of the four wickets between them) posed any kind of threat to the Indian batsmen. The rest of the lot looked lacklustre and insipid on a fifth day pitch that offered some help to the bowlers. Likewise, Johnson and Lee (all four second innings wickets between them) were the only ones who looked like taking a wicket for the Aussies. Everyone else was easy pickings.7)The Classic Century- A match-winning 103 not out by Sachin Tendulkar, of 196 deliveries with 9 boundaries. A match-winning 106 not out by AB de Villiers, of 186 deliveries with 9 boundaries. Innings for innings, these two knocks were just as good. AB de Villiers is no Sachin Tendulkar, but his innings on Sunday could be start of him going from good to great.

The Result
1) Chases make for great viewing, right from movies to cartoons (remember the Road Runner!) to cricket. And in the end, both chases were successful, India and South Africa won by 6 wickets.
2) Both games were a fantastic advertisement for Test Cricket. Forget the fast-food version, this is what cricket is all about.