Promodh Sharma Cricketer turned Entrepreneur

First division cricketer from the early 1990s, Promodh Sharma is truly one of a kind person. Like most teenagers of the time, he too was one with high hopes of making it big when he made his entry into cricket just before he turned 15 and dreamt every day of donning the India cap – His mother always told him to aim for the sky ‘Even if he missed it, he would land on the treetop’!! Promodh was practical, though. While he thought he had a chance to progress to the state level, he was acutely aware of the challenges on hand. PSBB was known to be one of the stronger school teams in the city in the late 1980s. However, Promodh belonged to a branch – PSBB KK Nagar- that was not seen as strong in cricket and for most part looked down by the more ‘popular’ players from PSBB Nungambakkam. This really meant that he was never going to have the same chances as those coming out of schools like Santhome, St Bede’s or Don Bosco which had ‘stronger lobbies’. It was this phase in his life that taught Promodh to swim against the tide, for he was always fighting with his back to the wall. 

Given this scenario that existed then in the 1980s, he promised to himself to quit serious cricket if he did not graduate to a certain level by the time he was completing his college. And Promodh did what no other budding cricketer of his time managed to do. While most of his compatriots went through the cricketing grind till they were 25 before they took a career call, Promodh quit serious cricket at 20 that had been his life and breath for over 5 years and set out to build a corporate career. In the next two decades, almost unnoticed, this middle class boy from T. Nagar built a global multi milion dollar apparel sourcing firm. Here’s the story. 

The first time I met Promodh Sharma was in the summer of 1987. He resided in the Alacrity apartments opposite the Somasundaram ground in T. Nagar. We cycled every morning that summer to the YMCA TSR club in Nandanam. Even as a teenager, I sensed the toughness in him. He would not bend down to anyone. He would give it back to those who tried to pull him down. Very few could tie him down on or off the field. He was always vocal. Challenging situations brought out the best in him. 

I saw the first glimpses of his cricketing prowess when we played together in a match for YMCA TSR against Gandhi Nagar Starlets team that included among others Sanjay Rajan, whose father (the late Rajan Bala) coached Promodh at school and whom he holds in high esteem even today. In the 30over a side match that day at the stadium ground in YMCA, Promodh and I put on a partnership of close to 200 with him scoring a big century. That was one of the many match winning knocks Promodh was to score in the next 5 years. 

Madras High Court Advocate TS Ramaswamy who ran the YMCA (TSR) club, a cricket academy that went on to produce many big cricketers including S Sriram, R Ashwin and S Badrinath, was impressed with his gutsy approach after watching Promodh scored another ton. It was after that century that TSR suggested his name to Swaraj Cricket Club and thus Promodh got into the TNCA league in 1987-88 when he was in Class X. In the first match he played for Swaraj, he got the MOM award with a match winning knock of 40. He played many a crucial knock that year and over the next few years took steady steps towards reaching the first division league in Madras.

His foundation lessons as a batsman came from MK Iqbal of Vadapalani Sports Club (his son- a left handed batsman- later played with us for YMCA TSR) who also was all about being principled and ethical. Iqbal imbibed great values in Promodh that stood the test of time and helped him face big challenges in life, later on. 

The best years of his cricket also coincided with his joining the YMCA TSR Club. It was this phase in his cricketing life where he learnt a lot in terms of mental strength and application, qualities that helped him enormously during the testing times in business life later on. TSR always liked the fighting spirit in Promodh and would continuously needle those instincts that was to bring out the best in him. While TSR did not know much of the nuances of the game, he knew a way to inspire and motivate young cricketers to perform, says Promodh who continues to draw lessons from those days at the TSR club in managing the challenges in his entrepreneurial life. It was TSR's motivational ways to get the best out of his players that helped YMCA TSR beat a much more fancied Brijesh Patel academy to win the tournament in Bangalore.

It was in the later half of the 1980s that Promodh played some of his best cricket at all levels. 

The underdogs PSBB KK Nagar won the APSC championship, an inter CBSE schools tournament beating their very strong Nungambakkam counterparts primarily on the back of Promodh's match winning knocks. In the final of the All India cricket tournament organised by Brijesh Patel in Bangalore, Promodh scored a crucial role forging a big partnership with his dear coach's son (Nayaz- Iqbal's son) batting with a broken finger against a strong Karnataka side that included players who soon went on to play for the state. It was also a series when he gave it back to the Bangalore players who repeatedly bullied him. When Brijesh Patel Cricket Clinic’s wicket keeper bullied him (aka Kiran More in 1992 World Cup), Promodh held up the game and remarked “You speak better than you keep” that shut the keeper up for the rest of the tournament. 

By then though, Promodh had already encountered the first mega drama of cricket politics that was to leave a bitter taste in him all his life. He was on the verge of selection in the city schools team. In the original squad that was selected, he was in the reserves i.e just outside the squad of 15 players. That’s when the renowned cricket writer of the time Rajan Bala, who was also the coach at PSBB, broke a story on the age scandal in TN cricket. And thus cricketers in the original squad had to be pulled out. 

                                     

The sequence of events that followed shocked Promodh no end and is vividly in memory to this day“A few of us from PSBB were in the reserves in the original squad. But when the new squad was announced, the ‘original reserves’ continued to be in the reserves of the new team as well. Clearly, we paid a price for our coach Rajan Bala pulling the strings on the TNCA.” 

As he looks back at those days from the mid 1980s, one of the happy memories was from being coached by Rajan Bala which he recalls as his greatest experience “He did wonders for your spirit and was a person who allowed us the opportunity of playing 2 day games even as youngsters. His presence had a big impact on my cricket and my outlook to life. ” 

That was only the beginning. A year or so later, Promodh had once again got into the TNCA city schools reserves but much to his shock he was dropped from his own school team as his coach, a former TN cricketer and who now runs one of the biggest academies in the city, told Promodh that he ‘forgot’ his name. A boy who was in the reserves of the city schools team was dropped from his own school team (we will keep the specifics of that for a later story!!!). As he did then and in many later episodes in his life, Promodh answered with his bat. In the next two years, he was the highest run getter in the tournament. Over 30 years after the episode, Promodh remembers getting the wicket of South Zone u19 cricketer LU Arun in the final of the APSC tournament with his slinging action and following that up with a match winning knock with the bat. 

My association with him continued in the TNCA league as we play third division cricket together for Rakesh Kapoor's team (Ashish Kapoor's father) - MUC. On difficult bouncy pitches playe in MUC's home ground near Parrys, he scored runs in tough situations through the 1989-90 season.

By the time he was in college, he had moved up the ladder to play for Kunal Engineering (Rising Stars) in the first division league. However, in a rough season for him, his experience turned out to be bitter. Here too he bore the brunt of ‘discrimination’. It was a tough call for a teenager like him in those days. His father had been ill and in bed for a long period. For each of the practice sessions, he made a long trip from his college, MCC, in Tambaram to the Kunal nets in Ambattur. The aged coach, who was a renowned and respected figure, sent him late in the order on most occasions that season but when the opposition had fiery fast bowlers and on green tops the coach sent him top of the order. The year with Kunal shook his confidence in fair play and he was disgruntled with the way the game was played here and the amount of politics that surrounded the game. He knew he was not as talented as many others but always had the self belief and saw himself as a very determined and fighting cricketer. It was after the match against SBI that he decided to call it quits, a decision that came soon after his father passed away. 

He was sitting quietly in the dressing room thinking that he would go as usual as No. 7 but when 2 wickets fell for 2 runs against the fiery I Rajkumar, his coach asked him to pad up and rush in immediately. He battled long and hard that innings and came back unscathed but after the treatment meted out to him, he found that while he had the will power to fight a battle on the field, he did not have it in him to battle it out with the coach and the system day in day out. While he was saddened to quit cricket without fulfilling the little potential he had, he knew that without support it was always going to be an uphill battle. From a young age, he was brought up to walk proud and never be subservient to anyone and in those days perhaps it was not a character which was appreciated in the cricketing circles. 

Promodh has all his life been a fun loving person. At most times, he would not hesitate to go to the opposition to shake their hands after a milestone. Off the field, he was chums with most in the opposition. Unfortunately, for a cheerful personality as Promodh, the big take away from his final years in cricket was the amount of politics and favoritism that he encountered at every level of the game. That for him took away a lot of the fun from the game. 

Soon after graduation, he joined Celebrity Fashions (then the parent company of India Terrain) at 20 at a salary of just Rs. 1800 and with a Lamberetta to ride around the city on work!!! Top first division cricketers his age were paid around Rs. 5000 by the big private clubs. While his father had passed away while he was still a teenager, his mother, a staffer at Alacrity Housing had always been a pillar of strength for Promodh throughout his childhood and his years as a budding cricketer. While the money in his first job was not big, he was lucky to be mentored by V Rajagopal who groomed him to be a leader. At work, he found someone that he had not in previous five years in cricket. He was not yet 25 when he had already begun travelling around the world marketing their products. Just as he had done in cricket over the previous 5 years or so, he slogged at work, an effort that did not go unnoticed. He had moved up to become the head of marketing and partnerships. 

5 years of cricket and almost a decade of having 15 hour days at work including extensive global travel took a toll on him. And he decided to take a break. Just at the time he was turning 30, he quit his job at Celebrity Fashions and went on a holiday to Sri Lanka with his wife Nirupama. It was during the vacation in Lanka and after his chats with his wife, a psychiatrist by profession, that he realized his strengths in marketing and overseas client relationships. It was his cousin Sheila who pushed him into a start up. It was another big call to turn enterpreneur. With the blessings of his mentor Rajagopal, he launched Fifth Avenue, an apparel sourcing firm with an initial capital of Rs. 2Lakhs. 

He understood the overseas customers’ mindset and believed he could bridge the gap between global clients and Indian factories. He was confident that he would be able to create value for the global customers and good business for the Indian manufacturers and he built a business around this model. He delighted his first customer, a German firm ‘Trampolin’ who had previously had a bad experience with India and its manufacturers. He started small but in the very first year he provided such a delightful experience that Trampolin soon became a large client, at a time when the market itself was not great. 

Soon he bagged a large deal to manage Diesel’s entire sourcing from India, an engagement that was fully taken care of by Nirupama. In a period of just three years, Promodh and his wife took Diesel’s sourcing from India from just 1 million to 23 million. 

There was no looking back since. Like in cricket, Promodh faced many bouncers in business too but he ducked under or hooked it hard as he had during his hey days on the playing field. Soon, the biggest of global brands such as Benetton, Sixty and Calvin Klein Europe came on board. His sourcing firm’s products that included sports brands were found on the shelves of the most premium stores across the US, Europe and Asia. In the decade following the launch, Promodh had truly gone global. With the customers stationed overseas, he moved his headquarters to Hongkong and he now sits atop a posh two storied building where he meets top CEOs from the apparel sector to discuss their sourcing requirements from India. 

Having been locked down in a palatial bungalow in Hongkong for the last two months, Promodh with his now three decades on the ground global experience both with the biggest of global apparel brands and the Top Indian manufacturers sees the issue of the Corona virus as having serious global ramifications. Promodh has worked with the who’s who of the apparel manufacturers in India and sees this as a great opportunity for them “China has been the factory of the world and there are few businesses which do not get material from China either fully manufactured or as specialised parts. Countries and Business houses which were China centric are now forced to look at risk mitigation and viable alternatives in the medium and long term. The world can be made to see India as a serious alternative."

If entrepreneurs, businesses and the Government work together and move forward decisively, he says India has a giant opportunity which can truly spur our growth. Having worked closely with the Indian market for close to three decades, Promodh says that India has the right Demographic, language advantage and the creativity, and that ‘with the right attitude we can put ourselves in an enviable position.’ 

Since quitting serious cricket in the early 1990s, Promodh made a re-entry albeit for fun after he became an entrepreneur managing a TNCA lower division league team in Madras just as a weekend relaxation and to stay in touch with a sport that he loved so much. In a match that I umpired at the St. Bedes ground, one where Promodh had once struck a match winning half century way back in the 1980s to take his school into the final, I found that he had lost none of his fiery touch on the pitch. During those two years of running the league team, he offered cricket opportunities to budding teenagers from remote towns in Tamil Nadu and played the role of a mentor. Promodh now continues his association in Hongkong where he is involved with the Discovery Bay Cricket Club working with youngsters and building a team. 

At 20, most cricketers his age took the call to stretch their cricket career by a few years in their effort to don the State colours, but for many that proved elusive. A few managed to play Ranji, but most fell by the way side in cricket having spent the 5 additional years that delayed their entry into the corporate world. As I looked back at my cycling years with him, Promodh Sharma has always been someone who wanted to be the best in what he did. In cricket, which he was very passionate about from childhood, he definitely did not want to be an also ran. And quit cricket at 20 a bold call for someone who had lived and breathed cricket through his previous five years to move into the corporate arena just as he came out of his teens. 

Given what he had experienced on and off the field over the five years of his short career, he has always held the decision to give up cricket as the most sensible decision of his life even though it was heart breaking at that time. He also saw it that many deserving cricketers simply did not recover from their inability to match their own expectations and that of their family. The lack of mental strength meant that they ended giving up not just cricket but also took the cricketing defeat to heart and lost out on life. 

Personally, it is a delightful moment to write about one with whom I went along in our cycles across the cricketing grounds in the city, one with a never say die attitude to life and who has shown to the world that with dedication, commitment and self belief, it is possible to rise to the top despite having been pushed aside and sidelined in an early phase of one’s life.