Pitch, Presentation & Pimms

I lost interest in cricket after school, but I was always open to enjoying it -- not as a serious sport to follow, but as a form of entertainment, like going to the beach or watching a movie. Unlike the effort I once made as a schoolboy -- begging and borrowing just to get a ticket for one day of a five-day Test at Eden Gardens, my subsequent visits were always as guests of someone or the other. In India, HSBC, with whom I had a big relationship -- thanks to the IBM money they were holding in escrow -- had given me tickets for an IPL match at Eden Gardens. But in this the biggest jackpot was Lords.

We had made the transition from PwC to IBM and we were engaged in a data warehousing project for British Petroleum. This was in 2003-2004 and if I remember correctly, the UK partner was a gentleman called Siva Ramesh, a person of Sri Lankan origin who claimed to have played a few tests for the Sri Lanka cricket team! He was the overall project partner and I was the partner heading the delivery operations from IBM Kolkata. The project was not very complicated -- it was mostly about writing extract-transform-load code using most probably Informatica -- and it was going pretty smoothly. Unlike US clients, BP was a very generous company, so much so that they virtually shut down their operations around Christmas and allowed almost all their employees to take leave. That meant, that we -- the contractors, had little to do but our billing never stopped. BP also sent nice gifts to our staff and all in all it was all very congenial. This was before the rise of Big Tech and oil companies still ruled the roost with monstrous profits in pumping and selling oil. So they could afford to be generous.

While the data warehousing project was good, Siva, the ever enterprising ex-PwC partner had a bigger goal in mind. BP was contemplating a bigger project and to pitch for it, he wanted me to personally join him for the bid. There had been some not-so-good-natured rivalry between IBM Kolkata and IBM Bangalore and one of my presentations on why IBM Kolkata was a more appropriate option had made quite a hit in the world of IBM Consulting. Siva too had been led to believe that if I could be on the bidding team then the possibility of winning was higher. So what he did was quite interesting. He scheduled a high level project review meeting of the data warehousing project so that BP would fund my travel to the UK. This meant I could be present -- and be a part of the bidding team -- when the bid for the next project was made. This also meant that BP would be funding my travel -- and of course this could be nothing less than Business Class trip! In those days, Indian partners, especially junior ones like me, could never travel Business Class but since this would be funded by the ever generous client, we were on.

I had made a similar trip for the SkyTV project that was run by another UK partner, and good friend Graham Jones, so there was an excellent precedent and the bean counters at IBM decided to let me go.

The trip was fantastic for a variety of reasons one of which was my visit to the former PwC office on the South Bank of the Thames from where we had a wonderful view of the river. Subsequently I joined their bid team at the BP premises where I came across a strange safety procedure. Petroleum being a high risk industry, it was a practice in BP that any meeting, on any BP premises, would be preceded by a safety announcement made by the senior-most BP employee in the meeting who would, almost ritualistically, read out relevant parts of the safety manual and tell us about emergency exits!

In any case, the presentation went on quite well and I remember one question that was put to us. Why was the BP project being proposed out of IBM Kolkata and not from the far larger IBM Bangalore premises to which I replied in a flash! "Because I am from IBM Kolkata and if you need one neck to catch, I am offering you my neck, and you can rest assured that your job would be done." Apparently this single statement of mine struck an immediate chord with the BP management and for all practical purposes the deal was sealed.

Now that I had won his bid for him, Siva offered me a fantastic reward. The Indian cricket team, led by Sourav Ganguly was in England on a three match ODI "Natwest" series and had lost the first two matches. The third and last one was scheduled for Lords later that week and Siva promised to get me ticket for the match. That too, not any ticket but tickets for Graham Gooch / David Gower suite in the Tavern Stand Box. Who could ask for anything more?

So that Sunday, I showed up at Lords and was met by Siva and we had a gala time watching the game. Fortunately, after two previous losses, Sourav Ganguly scored a stunning 90 runs and helped India to a thrilling win that we enjoyed to our heart's content. The hospitality in the box was just superb and we helped ourselves to some excellent lunch and for the first time, I had Pimms, a gin-based liqueur, which apparently was the flavour of the season that year.

But while watching India win at Lord's was wonderful, the best was yet to come! The next day I reached to Heathrow to catch the BA flight back to India and after checking-in headed towards the Business Class Lounge to await my flight. And who do I see sharing the lounge with me? None other than my child hood hero Kapil Dev who too had been at Lord's the day before. This was before the era of camera phones, so I do not have a selfie but I had to take an autograph and what better place could I find for this priceless signature?

My ticket for the game itself.

And so ended my great visit to Lord's -- the Kailash of Kricket!