Growing up in Hyderabad, the bedroom wall at Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella’s home had three posters that probably would have never been pasted together. Alongside philosopher Karl Marx and Goddess of wealth Lakshmi was good-looking batsman ML Jaisimha, a long-time favourite cricketer among the game’s connoisseurs. In an old interview, Nadella has also spoken about missing the heady days of Sachin Tendulkar’s debut as he moved to the United States in 1988.
Another desi corporate czar in the US, Nikesh Arora of cyber-security company Palo Alto Networks, recently said how he and his other Silicon Valley friends, most Fortune 1000 regulars with Indian roots, get up at 4 am to watch the Indian Premier League. They would tune in for Tests too. At the height of the anti-trust law debate in 2021, Google CEO Sundar Pichai would find time to follow Rishabh Pant’s daredevilry in Brisbane. “One of the greatest Test series wins ever…” – he would tweet.
It isn’t just cricket but also the longing to reconnect with their childhood passion in the land of baseball that brings most Indians together – even business rivals. Last week, 11 Indian-American cricket romantics got the right to be called part-owners of the Home of cricket – the iconic Lord’s cricket ground in London. The privilege to be the first-ever private partners at Lord’s in more than 200 years came at a price – 144 million pounds. Converted into rupees, the amount makes Indian eyes water – Rs 1,500 crore.
The opportunity arose when the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) decided to auction 49 percent of the eight teams playing ‘The Hundred’ – the contest for supremacy in cricket’s latest variation, the four-year-old barely breathing format in need of a cylinderful of fiscal oxygen.
This opened the door to some exclusive cricket clubs. Silicon Valley cricket enthusiasts wouldn’t have missed this chance. It was just a minority stake of ownership for one tournament with no rights or say in anything else. It was still worth it, it seems.
This rare chance saw the coming together of a consortium that can pass off a corporate Dream Team. Called Cricket Investor Holdings Limited, this group, headed by Palo Alto’s Arora, has Pichai and Nadella along with CEOs of Adobe and Silver Lake Management – Shantanu Narayen and Egon Durban. Also part of the consortium is Satyan Gajwani, vice-chairman of Times Internet.