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Building up your Financial Innings

By Sridhar Srinivasan   11 April

Category: General

Building up your Financial Innings

Indians, as a nation and as individuals, are influenced heavily by our emotions. Sentiments drive much of our behavior, from choosing a smartphone to sensationalist media to even choosing a life partner!

As an example, I recall an India vs England match in Pune back in January 2017.

  • India had won the toss and elected to field.
  • England, led by Eoin Morgan, put up a fine batting display and set a stiff target of 351 in 50 overs. Such a daunting and uphill task!
  • In reply, Indians finished at 356/7 in 48.1 overs, with fine centuries by Virat Kohli and Kedar Jadhav and a quickfire cameo by Hardik Pandya.

Enough eulogies and essays have been written about the match that day. However, we can look at this match with a different perspective — the highs and ebbs in the emotions of the Indian audience.


England at 42 overs: 245/4, Run Rate 5.83.
Sentiment: Positive,
“India is on track to restrict England to around 300, smart bowling”


England at 50 overs: 350/7, Run Rate 7.00.
Sentiment: Mildly Negative,
“India has lost the plot, given away too many runs in the last 8 overs. But we have a strong batting lineup so it should be a competitive match”


India at 12 overs: 64/4, Run Rate 5.33.
Sentiment: Highly Negative,
“This match is beyond redemption, no point watching it any more!”


India at 31 overs: 221/4, Run Rate 7.13, Required Run Rate: 7.55
Sentiment: Positive,
“Virat & Kedar fighting back strongly, looks like this will be a close match!”


India at 40 overs: 291/6, Run Rate 7.13, Required Run Rate: 6.84
Sentiment: Mildly Negative,
“Both Virat and Kedar are out, now the target looks difficult to achieve.”


India at 48.1 overs: 356/7, Run Rate 7.40.
Sentiment: Exuberant,
“What an incredible chase! Great going by Indian batsmen”

If you noticed,

  • The sentiments varied wildly throughout the game, ranging from Highly Negative to Exuberant
  • The negative sentiment so overwhelms some of us that we would just withdraw from watching the game and move on to other things, just keeping a side tab on the score. This set of people would return when the match gets interesting again i.e. when India is putting up a good fight.
  • Some of us understand that the match is not over till the last ball is bowled and hence stay the course, watching the entire match in entirety
  • The ones who stay the course are the ones who would have enjoyed the match the most as opposed to the ones who went in and out of the game driven by their sentiments

This is the same cycle of emotions that we go through when investing for wealth creation. If 50 overs is our investment horizon of 15 years, then 15 overs is equivalent to 5 years of the timeline.

Remember to watch the whole investment innings (15 years) rather than just get out of it at the hints of negativity (3 years, 5 years etc). That is what will give you the full satisfaction of watching your wealth grow.

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