The amount of time that this country spends on cricket is huge. I am saying this at a time when I consider cricket a complete waste of time – this after having spent hours on end watching cricket till about 1999-2000.

What are my learning from cricket?

1. For those of us brought up on West Indian and later on Australian dominance, it is still difficult to do a Ctrl+Alt+Del about those memories. It is really tough to forget Viv Richards hammer the hell out of the English bowlers, or Tony Greig using the word ‘grovel’ before the series and getting paid for that.

Similarly there are people who have been brought up on debt instruments, these people cannot give up their fear of equity. However equity investing is  A MUST if you are 10, 20, 30….or more years away from investing.

2. Forget 4 years ago, even if you had told me 4 weeks ago that India will have a clean sweep against Australia, I am not sure I would have believed you.

THINGS DO CHANGE, be ready for it. PPF becoming taxable, Estate duty coming back, dividend tax, capital gains tax on equities, – all look impossible today. However if you have another 30 years to live, be ready for all these things to happen.

Learning: Be flexible in your retirement planning —it is too damn far away!

3. If all the kids spent as much time on learning about investing as they do on learning about cricket, they would be much better off. If you are one of those persons, go to ‘retirement’ on the right side – and read all the articles and keep asking questions.

Learning: Entertainment is great, but for you it is not a profession. One day if you have tor retire, you have NO choice but to create a second or third lines of income..

4. At 12 Noon on Sunday, I thought India would struggle: a bad pitch which was turning and bouncing, a good bowling attack,…were all indicating a difficult 4th test match at Kotla. However Dhoni’s men did get the better of  Shane Watson’s men.

Learning: Many a times it is only at the end of the journey you realise how much effort you put in and how much risk you took. REMEMBER it is YOUR journey. People around you can advise, scare you, praise you, criticise you….NOTHING matters, YOU need to reach the end of your journey in good shape, that is all. Everything else is secondary.

5. The best coaches (blogs too!) have to change as per the change in requirement. If you are batting in the West Indies, you need a more upright stand. If you are playing in Australia – the chances are you will be too scared to go on to your front foot.

So if your coach changes your mind, KNOW why he has changed tactics, there has to be a reason.

6. Coach does not know everything: My imaginary financial planner has to know a lot of things. However if you only have a form pushing adviser masquerading as a financial planner, be alert. Keep learning – REMEMBER YOU are the winner or loser, NOT the coach….