Asks Dr Rudi Webster
A few hours after India’s exciting and historic win against Australia in Brisbane, a close friend sent me the following comments: “FANTASTIC! They beat Australia with a novice bowling attack. They chased 320 odd in the 4th innings. That should inspire our players (in Bangladesh).”
A few days before the Brisbane Test, an editor of one of India’s largest newspapers contacted me and asked, “What advice would you give to Team India? They are depleted for the Brisbane Test due to injuries. I am writing a piece on the Brisbane Test.”
The editor was concerned that Team India would play below their normal standard and would lose the Test match and the Test series.
I understood his concerns, but I perceived the situation differently. I saw it as an opportunity for Team India to surprise the Australians; to put them under a level of pressure for which they were mentally unprepared. When you are not prepared for certain types of pressure, they hit you twice as hard and sabotage your thinking, game plan and performance I knew that the omission of key players from Team India might encourage the Australians to underestimate India’s chances of winning, while overestimating their own. That expectation could then lead to overconfidence. Sir Garfield Sobers used to say: “Overconfidence is a very dangerous thing. It is false confidence and is a prescription for failure.”
I also knew that factors other than physical skill would determine the outcome of the game. Skill and motivation are both necessary for good performance, but in too many cases motivation is a forgotten factor. I was confident that captaincy and motivation would play decisive roles in the outcome of the game.
I told the editor: “Rahane is motivating the team well and seems to be getting the best out of his players. If he continues in that fashion, the replacements in the team will step up to the plate, give a good account of themselves, and make important contributions to the performance of the team.“
I continued: “The discipline that the team displayed in the fourth innings of the Sydney Test was outstanding. The players’ self-belief, self-confidence and self-motivation must now be high. The depth of these three factors will determine the level of the team’s performance. If the players stay calm under pressure and execute the basics effectively they will do well. But, they must not allow the comments of the Australians to distract and break their concentration. In the Eighties, Lloyd’s team used such comments to motivate and to remind themselves to refocus on the basics.”
Of leadership and motivation, Ian Chappell, a former captain of Australia once told me that any captain could learn how to set a field, change the bowling, write out the batting order, or formulate and explain a game plan. He feels that motivation to execute the plan is the most important factor in captaincy, particularly under pressure when things get tough, and when smart thinking and extra effort are required. He thinks that a four or five-year period is about the limit for most captains. Pressure sometimes gets to them after that, dampens their initiative and creativity and interferes with their motivation and leadership skills,
In war, campaigns are not won by administering soldiers into battle. They must be motivated to fight. The same is true in cricket. The players must be motivated to fight. At the highest levels of sport, victory is driven by the will, spirit and mental toughness of the man who leads, and the players who follow.
Clearly, the replacements in Team India are fighters. It would be interesting to examine the environments in which they were brought up. The factors that influenced their development and motivated them to climb to the top of the cricket ladder would then become clear. My guess is that things were not easy and that their hunger for success stimulated them to fight hard for every forward step and success.
Someone once said that there is no substitute for a strong desire to succeed. If you don’t have it, don’t even bother trying because it is very difficult to be among the best players. No matter how much talent and ability you have, you will never make it to the top unless you are hungry for success, or highly motivated to do the hard but important things that will bring you success. We now know that the players’ motivational profiles are better predictors of future performance than their skill profiles.
The West Indies players in Bangladesh should be inspired by the performance of the “depleted’ Indian team. It could help them to imagine what they might be able to achieve and become. Their performance in Test cricket in Bangladesh cannot be worse than the performance of the players who, for one reason or another declined the invitation to tour Bangladesh. Test and first class averages in the twenties and thirties are nothing to boast about.
Over the years, I was fortunate to work with some of the best cricketers in Australia, India, Sri Lanka and West Indies. Comparing the attitude, behaviour and performance of our current players with those from the three other countries, I would say that in general our players are way behind in the following areas: a willingness to listen and learn, work ethic, self-discipline, self-motivation, self-awareness, self-reliance, hunger for success, commitment, fighting spirit, mental toughness, handling pressure, concentration and other mental skills.
In the last month of Malcolm Marshall’s life he expressed similar opinions and concerns to me about the West Indies players that he had been observing. During that month we had many discussions about cricket, particularly West Indies cricket. He predicted that deficiencies in those important areas would plunge West Indies cricket into a steep decline and failure spiral that would entrap the players for many years. How correct he was! I wish I had taped our conversations.
I understand that a certain degree of arrogance has crept into the minds of some of our current cricketers. I can excuse batsmen with Test and first class averages in the fifties and high forties for having a minor degree of arrogance. But, I cannot explain why arrogance should be present in players with averages in the twenties and thirties.
The cricketers in Bangladesh have an excellent opportunity to start with a clean slate. They have a chance to incorporate some of those key ingredients into training, preparation and performance on the field. I wish them luck and success.
