Waugh bats for tsunami and self

The stage was set. A tsunami victim from Car Nicobar, rock music selling hope, Wasim Kapoor’s canvasses and Steve Waugh’s six Made...

The stage was set. A tsunami victim from Car Nicobar, rock music selling hope, Wasim Kapoor’s canvasses and Steve Waugh’s six Made in Australia bats going under the hammer. A nattily dressed Waugh, looking business-like, entered the five-star ballroom in the company of his manager Robert Joske, all set for a talk on ‘Leadership: Cricket and the Corporate World’.

The 25-minute discourse, in which Waugh told a rapt audience how to trust ‘‘gut’’ feeling and ‘‘instinct’’ in the game, how to fulfil corporate responsibility in business as well as sports, how to win the trust of team-players and partners in business, was more MBA than MCC, the clearest sign that he was launching into the world of business. ‘‘I might even invest in Bengal but nothing is concrete yet’’, Waugh told The Indian Express.

Waugh’s corporate spin was lauded by Professor Surendra Munshi of IIM Calcutta. ‘‘Steve, who began and ended the game by playing against India, spoke about trusting one’s instinct, about treating people equally, about hiring people with right character. The corporate world should draw on the experience of leaders from all fields, including sports’’, he said.

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The auction that followed was a bit of a damp squib. Unlike the 1998 auction at the same venue, when Don Bradman’s signed bat was picked up for Rs 30 lakh, three of Waugh’s bats fetched only Rs 55,000 each on Thursday night.

‘‘The donations and auction money, which amounted to around Rs 30 lakh, will go into rebuilding the devastated Andaman and Car Nicobar islands and will be routed through the NGO, Together We Will’’, said Shamlu Dudeja of the Calcutta Foundation.

So what was Waugh really here for? Saving the tsunami victims or launching his ‘‘corporate’’ programme? ‘‘We are meeting a lot of people in the Government and industry. Nothing is final yet but Kolkata is changing every day and its like a second home to Steve,’’ was all Robert Joske would say.

As for helping tsunami victims, L Robert Henry from Car Nicobar felt that Waugh’s presence in Car Nicobar would have been more effective. ‘‘Our boys are really fond of cricket. Waugh, Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar are their heroes. I wish the cricketers went there to encourage youngsters to come out and play again’’, Henry said. He did, however, appreciate Waugh’s effort. Business or no business, that was something which Indian cricketers had not really pitched for this time around.