Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Learnings from White Wash & team India!

“For most men the reason for failure is not absence of the capacity to succeed but absence of determination to succeed” ...Me.

“agreed, one series’ defeat doesn't define you, but!! We have never believed in specialization & the outcome is this!! we need test squad different and don't allow them to play in IPL, pay them to recover from that loss or else we will be just T20 Champions!! Good we lost even the 3rd test as we deserved that loss, had we won the 3rd test then again, we would have praised that won only & forgotten the first 2 defeats!! As well, one test’s poor performance makes kl rahul sit out, then why not rohit s & virat k are treated with same stick?? Well, done team India, to make yourself show the world what you are actually in test cricket for now!!”

Well, I am sure most of the readers must have understood above para & the meaning of the quote both of which are written (and thought) by me in a WhatsApp group chat & I don’t use any copyright thingy for my quotes so the readers are free to use it which I am sure hardly anybody will do, so be it! That was joke & a bad joke but what happened with team India in the recent test series with Kiwis’ (team New Zealand) was definitely not a joke but it was murder with abuse & if you find my such terminology exaggerated then you are real fan (read as a fool) of team India, btw team India mean India’s official cricket team, rather BCCI’s & not nation’s (plz google for BCCI)!

Ok, a disclaimer, this sharing is about cricket so those who are not interested or hate cricket the can stop reading but , I don’t warship or glorify cricket as for me it's just a game which most people of this country can play & understand & that’s why I like to analyse this game whenever possible as like any game it teaches us so many things about life & as billions of Indians play this game its best tool to connect, so the sharing is about cricket but more about our attitude towards life & such! If you still want to stop reading, your choice! Recently team India in its entire ninety years of cricket playing history (fifteen odd years even before independence as a national team) lost a series in home with all nil in a three-test series i.e. White Wash, that too from a team which till today has never been able to team India in India, so it’s a murder & an insulting way for sure! Before I analyse (sorry, share my take away) the recent past of the both teams were, NZ team has come back from a brown wash i.e. lost both tests of the series they have played in our neighbouring country, Sri Lanka! Team India has not only won the T20 World Cup but has won the last test series with Bangladesh that too from a down under situation & the last test of the series has broken many records by Indian team in doing so! In nutshell, team NZ was morally down, while team India was riding a wave of success before the series started! At the same time history was not in favour of team NZ as even their own management wouldn’t have believed if somebody would have predicted that their team will beat team India by 3-0 score, yet team NZ beat team India the invincible team for record time (twelve years) at home turf, is my subject of sharing as I am always interested in why, especially when it’s a defeat & this was big defeat by any definition!

I am sure that many cricket pundits (in our country you get in every home/office one such) are writing down their theories but fortunately the day we lost the last test next two days entire news media was on holiday because of Diwali & then there was USA Presidential election so team India was saved a lot from their Media Dhulai (well, read as lashing)! I am not writing this piece for adding Surf/Nirma (please google meaning) in team India’s dhulai but just want to analyse it for my own self as well for my kids, youngsters & my team, if they want to learn from it! As first & foremost, in any game there is a winner & there is a loser & not even the GOAT (again google) can keep winning all the time barring extreme exceptions such as Mike Tison in his prime but we saw how his career also ended! So, how can a team which goes to One Cricket’s World cup finals, mean they are near champion, then win T20 World Cup & just after beating one team in test cricket by super margins in the next few weeks gets defeated by some team which is way below par in their compare in all formats, is my subject of sharing, as these defeats teaches us many things & one of them is to understand the league of the game you are playing in!

First, NZ is a team of professions & very fit players. Second & which is the most important aspect of this defeat & which is applicable for any business also is, high time for BCCI & team India to differentiate three formats of this game needs three different teams if you don’t want such White Wash defeat! Because however you train a donkey & make him fit yet it wont even win a Derby race against the horses & please don’t think I am calling team India a bunch of donkeys but selectors & BCCI, yes, they are! Take this example, can you ask a 100 m race champion to win a marathon race just because he is a world champion of 100 m which is ‘Bapp’ of all athletics! Or, can you expect a lightweight or featherweight boxer who is champion in this group to beat even a normal boxer from a heavyweight group! Answer is no, & not because there is any problem with the respective world champion of 100 m race or light weight boxer but the game becomes different, as you change the format of the same game! This is why even when Raffel Nadal & Carlos Alcaraz, both of them are individual single’s genius players of tennis, can’t win a medal for their country while playing doubles together as the game of doubles needs different skills & mindset & temperament which they may not have even being a champion of the same game but in different format! Same is with team India, as of late we have been boss of limited overs format & may be 20 overs to 50 overs shift is not that big but when you have to play for 90 overs a day for five days & with no field restrictions, suddenly the same game’s nature changes 360 degrees for which this team India is not prepared for! And we have been observing it time & again yet we are not accepting the reason behind it, is my subject of sharing. And this is why, in recent years twice we have been in the finals of World Test Cricket & both times we have lost, one of the latest opponents was NZ only, we very easily forget the past, that’s the problem with our country & team India is no exception to this law of forgetting!

This very same principle of this game is applicable to many of the entrepreneurs’ (read as builders) also, as when they get success in one type of business, they start feeling they have got Midas Touch & whichever business they start it will hit success & we all know what happens then! This is what even as an individual also we must learn & accept in our respective life may it be career or any role we are doing as understand our strong points & stick to that & that doesn’t mean stop improvising, what it means is just don’t consider ourselves as Master of everything around us or else a white was awaits us for sure & that hurts! Not only it hurts but such defeat can damage our morale also & that’s tough to recover even for the champions! Team India is experiencing it already as even with last two series being won in Australia the series ahead has been already lost is what people are predicting post this White Wash, this is what your ego can do to you as nobody thought of White Wash loss with team NZ & yet that happened, is my subject of sharing!

There will be advices & suggestions to make senior players (again partiality as why not all players) more domestic cricket but that’s not going to solve the problems as again we are making a mistake of mixing two different games here! Even if a 100 m race champion practices hard for a marathon, as the basic needs for two races are different, some day or other the result will be obvious i.e. poor defeat! As for 100 m race the strength comes from muscles & in short bursts you have to use that strength & that’s why the physique of 100 m race players is heavy, stout & strong. But for a marathon you can’t afford weight even of muscles & the player must be lean but resilient & strength is in using it slowly for longer duration yet to reserve some for the last leap to beat others who are running in groups till the finish line is in sight, just like test cricket! Those who have watched these test matches (there are still few) if they remember the third test’s last day when all that team India has to do is make mere 146 runs to avoid white wash. Agreed pitch was turning but on the same pitch team NZ made more runs & when you are a sure candidate for world championship then you can’t give reasons, right? In that innings our captain got beaten for first two balls consecutively & on third ball he cam charging out of crease & just threw his bat on the ball & eventually got four runs but that shot showed inability of three things, one is inability of understanding of the game he was playing that too as a captain also, two is, inability of keeping away frustration (depression) of last few innings failure & three is, desperation to win, after watching that shot I stopped watching the match as I knew what is going to happen ahead & we were five wickets down on mere some thirty runs!

Again, this one shot selection doesn’t makes our captain a bad player but what it shows is, he is unfit for test format along with many players of this squad as when you play some game or run a business then your mind must be tuned with the basics of that game (or business) & this doesn’t happen automatically unless you are a genius or else you need training & practice, lots of it & focusing on that particular type of game or the business! Nothing of which has been done by team India on this front i.e. practice or professional approch for the resepctive format of the game & outcome is a White Wash! Frankly, I felt sad for this defeat as I am a die-hard sports lover but I felt sadder for the way we fail to read the writing on the wall than mere defeat, is my subject of sharing! But I am happy for the outcome as somewhere someone will learn from this defeat, I have learnt for myself & will definitely try to prepare myself & my team for our respective games ahead, game of life or business whatsoever you may call! I am sure, team India also must have learnt her lesson, & life is not about just learning the lessons but it’s about improving yourself with those learnings, mind it, adios with this note team India, we love you (and yes, thanks for making us learn such wonderful lesson about defeat, at your cost)!

Sanjay Deshpande

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

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