The Hindu : Sport : An idea worth contemplating

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 28, 2005

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

An idea worth contemplating

India's players have to start paying the price because greatness does not come cheap, writes Rohit Brijnath

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that "there are no second acts in American lives," but certainly there are in sport. Careers can be mended and resumed afresh and Andre Agassi's journey from indolent punk to monkish warrior demonstrates that.

Teams can be remade, too, though it is a harder transformation, and while some systems may limp along, individual players can at least demand more from themselves and elevate their standards. What impresses sports psychologist Sandy Gordon about the Australian cricketers, among other things, is their "personal pride", a constant striving for improvement.

As India's chastised cricketers, eluded still by greatness, head for a three-month sabbatical, holidays beckoning, sponsors calling, bodies complaining, it is an idea worth contemplating.

Like Agassi they must know that greatness arrives not by chance but sweaty design. Later in his career, near his home in Las Vegas, Agassi would run up a steep hill named Magic Mountain, again and again, his strength coach Gil Reyes shouting "Your legs will never let you down!" till he stood there, vomiting but satisfied.

Hank Haney, swing coach to the planet's most driven athlete, Tiger Woods, would approve. As he said recently: "The biggest thing that holds most people back is that they just don't pay a big enough price to be successful."

Do India's cricketers want to pay that price?

So many things coalesce to forge the excellent athlete and team; skill, genes, system, planning, coach, luck. And desperation. Look for the great athlete/team and you'll find it, it's like an ache that won't pass, a painful hunger to just get better. As Gordon says: "It's easy to be good, but to be great you have got to have a huge, huge work ethic. Great teams work bloody hard."

Work ethic

In his early days at Manchester United, Eric Cantona turned to manager Alex Ferguson after a full session of team training, and said: "I need two players". What for, queried a bewildered Ferguson. To practice more, said Cantona. It was a work ethic his team could not ignore. This week, a wise-at-18 Rafael Nadal explained: "You want to know my secret? Work with humility and never make do with what you've got. Always want more."

There is an urgency to great athletes, an awareness there is so little time to scrawl their names across history. They are not in the mediocrity business and a voice in their heads needles them constantly. It is saying, explains Gordon: "Where am I going to get that 1 per cent or 5 per cent improvement?"

Not a mediocre team

India's team is not mediocre, more like potential in waiting, only infrequently realised. The players might say when grey is peeking from their caps that they were disadvantaged by an amateurish system, and maybe, but history doesn't care for excuses.

Working hard, at least, is within their control and men must lead themselves, not wait for captains or coaches to hold their hands. In fulfilling their potential they inch their team towards excellence and embarrass less worthy team-mates. One day, who knows, even overseas victory may be wrought.

So India's cricketers can take their deserved holidays and smile for sponsors and eat butter chicken, but the calendar on their lives is turning. Will they return to work quicker than planned, not just sweating in the nets, but keeping the body fat down, discovering ways to contribute as leaders, finding that 1 per cent improvement mentally, keeping the promise they made to themselves as kids that they would give everything?

The choice is theirs, but India's fine players have to start paying the price because greatness does not come cheap.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport