CAT and Cricket: How winning formulae of cricket work for CAT?

We in India get cricket analogies better than anything else. So here is a list of ideas for CAT with cricketing parallels.

Plan like the Kiwis

In cricket, the New Zealand team probably maximises its limited potential the best. In the 1992 world cup, they unleashed Greatbatch at the right time, opened with an off-spinner against India, and possibly tanked their last league match in order to play the semi-final at home.  More recently, a promoted Chris Harris scored a century in a world cup quarter-final at Chepauk.  It is astonishing how a team with such limited resources has competed so well for so long. It is because they read the opponents well, understand their limitations and play astute cricket.

Before going into CAT, you should know which topics you hate, which ones you are likely to get carried away with, which questions get you switched on, etc. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses well can improve your performance by 20-30%. 

Strut in like Ponting: “Purposeful stride to the centre”, “raring to go”, these are the phrases used to describe Ponting coming in. The only other player to convey so much with the walk was probably Viv Richards. But because it is not good to ‘swagger’ into an exam hall, let us go with Ponting. Whether it is actual CAT or a mock CAT, it is key to start with an eagerness that gives an adrenaline rush when you start the exam. In the 10-minutes before the exam, if you can work yourself up to start at your best, it can also feed into your belief. To use a Shastri-ism, you should walk in like you “mean business”

Start like Sehwag: Once the exam begins, the whole idea shifts to going one question at a time. All of the pre-exam agonizing and fretting should be left at the door. Here, Sehwag’s philosophy of see-ball hit-ball works best. It really does not matter whether it is Dale Steyn at 148km/hr or Paul Strang’s pie throwing. If it is in the zone, it goes to the boundary. As a student, the first few questions are when the mind does some wandering, when all the pre-exam strategizing comes into play. But in the 2 minutes that you spend to crack a question, all of this should fade into the background. It is amazing what a few correct answers can do to your thinking.

To give a parallel, in the world cup match quarterfinal Pakistan in 2012, Sehwag hit Pakistan’s best pace bowler Umar Gul for five boundaries in an over. The pitch was not that easy to bat on, Saeed Ajmal bowled magnificently later on. But because Sehwag had given a good start even before one could digest all these factors, India had an enormous buffer in the middle overs. Something similar happened in a previous match against Pakistan in the 2003 world cup. Against England in a test at our own Chennai, Sehwag scored an 80-odd at such a scorching pace that India went from outsiders to favourites in 20 overs. Imagine a paper where the quant is very tough, where questions from 11 to 16 are impossibly tough. But say you jumped headlong into this paper, and attempted 7 out of the first 10 within 12 minutes because you had this vague adrenaline rush with you. You can crash and burn yourself in the rest of the sections, but you have already guaranteed yourself a 99th percentile.

Leave like Dravid: When batting is tough, the key to survival is leaving the maximum number of deliveries. Something Rahul Dravid was very good at. In CAT also, attempting a question that you should not have tried extracts a far higher price than leaving a question that you should have tried. So, when in doubt, leave.

Now, imagine a new set of rules in a T-20 match. The batting team can leave any number of deliveries alone without making contact. All the deliveries that they left alone would be bowled again at them at the end. Think of the approach batsmen would take. They would tonk everything in the hitting range, leave everything else and live to have another go at these. This is exactly the format of the CAT.

Finish like Dhoni: Whenever Dhoni is managing a chase, it is obvious that he knows which bowlers to target, how many overs are remaining from the 5th bowler and how high a required run rate he can handle. As a test taker, at any point of time during an exam a student should know the following

i.    how many questions one has done thus far,

ii.    how many more can be reasonably done in the remaining time

iii.    What kind of questions are yet to come – as in Data Interpretation, or Sentence Rearrangement, or Logical Reasoning?

This knowledge gives you a sense of what to expect, which in turn helps you retain composure.

Play like you have no fear: Very often students ask me whether a good score in CAT is enough to get into the big few. Whether the slightly below average performance in class X, class XII, undergraduation can be compensated with a good run in CAT. The most honest answer I can give is ‘I don’t know’. 

The scenario is similar to participating in a tri-nations tournament, playing poorly in the first two matches, and battling opponents, net run rate and still hoping for some other results to go your way. You can do everything correct from there on but still not make it. Such is life.

This has happened to India, more than once. In the Commonwealth Bank series, India was so far off the pace that the team had to win with bonus point to even have a chance. Furthermore, the team had been set 320-ish to win. Kohli and co went berserk and the team won this within 38 overs, to secure bonus point as well. India was still eliminated as the other results did not go our way. So, in spite of a spectacular performance, it could so turn out that IIM A or B do not give you a call. There are way too many 99.8 or 99.9 percentilers with no calls from the big 3 who can attest to this. But there is no point worrying about this before CAT. If you score 99.9 percentile and IIM A and B do not even call you for interviews, but you get called for interviews by IIM Cal, odds are that you convert this, chastise yourself for putting yourself in this scenario and go on to do really well in IIM Cal. Once bitten twice shy.

More recently, in the tri-series in Windies, India had to not only win the last match, but win it comfortably as well. The team did this and went through to the finals. Where, having made a habit of defeating Sri Lanka whenever it mattered (like the previous 320 chase), the team went on to win the tournament.

So, don’t sweat about the uncontrollables. If you are behind on the other counts, play fearlessly and get a 99 or something around that.  Once you are in that range, you always have chance. It would be a shame if all this pondering left you with a diminished score. As the saying goes, we should not die wondering.

Any article on cricket should satisfy a cliché count. So, select questions according to the ‘merit of each question’, leave anything ‘in the corridor of uncertainty’, attempt questions at the speed of a ‘tracer bullet’ and perform well ‘within your limitations’.

Author of this article, Mr Rajesh Balasubramanian, an IIT, IIM alumnus, & 2011, 2012 CAT Topper and the author of CAT books published by ‘Access Publishing India’, guides CAT Aspirants through a series of expert articles on MBAUniverse.com.  

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