The aura that comes with being at the top

Disclaimer - This is not a sports articles though it will start with that note

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Two instances... One in which, Federer came back from a set down, suddenly shifting his gear and moving to 'his' zone, just blasting Davydenko to reach the semis of Aus. open and ..... Two in which, Aussies digging deep and finding their resilience, came back from a situation of no-return in the second test match against Pak.... But that is only one side of the story.. the other way of seeing it is ofcourse Davydenko going down after leading 3-0 and that too after already pocketing a set, and Pakistan managing to find a door to defeat after dominating Australia for 3 days...

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A lot has been and always be written about the top and superior guys. All credits to their spirit for hitting back from such situations. But spare a thought for the 'heroes' (or rather comedians?) of the other side. Because even we get into such situations without even realizing it. And so here goes my comment on trying to investigate what actually happens.

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Though several philosophical and technical explanations can be given to scenarios such as above I think the aura of being at the top and the underdog(relatively) tag might play a crucial role here. The underdog may just cannot believe that he is at the top there. It is not only a thing of surprise for others who are watching him, but even within himself he is quite surprised. 'Is it that I am really playing that well or is it that he is having an off day here?', and that I think is a killer doubt, your concentration wavers and there you have lost your energy!

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The reason why I had put the disclaimer was it is not a scenario that happens only in sport. It happens in my life and so (I believe) it does in each of our lives. It is because of the simple reason that you can never be 'the best' in what you do (and even if you do, you cannot be 'the best' in everything you do). And when we seem to be winning against an individual whom we consider (and the world in general) as superior to us, we lose our way somewhere. It might be studies in school (you beating the top ranked guy in small tests and then losing out on the Final), might be in presentation skills with a co-employee, might be winning contracts for a small company and then goofing up when it comes to a bigger client.. I am sure we will be able to think of several examples of our own.

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Under these circumstances, I think, it is important to remember how we reached that winning position. It well might have been that the 'superior' person was having an off day, but we cannot take the role of our hardwork lightly. It deserved every winning step that we achieved.

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But this is where sport differs from real life. What is 'winning' in life? Nothing is permanent as we all know, so it is that 'fleeting' superior satisfactory performance that we call win, it is the consistency of wins that we call a success. But we all know it is not an end point, it is a continuous journey that we are always reminded of. We keep raising our bar. (Even in sports one might argue the same thing about winning, but I guess I communicated what I intended to)

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Being aware of such a thing is of course the first thing in preventing the slide early. We need to remember that if we slack even for a moment, our so called superior opponent will just cruise through. It is hence important to sustain the steam, it is not about self confidence or belief, but rather about indefatigableness, the power of never giving up till your goal is reached.

Are Indian rookie bowlers underbowled?

It has been some time since I wrote.. Here is one again on Cricket, a thought I wanted to record long before.. so before I forget..

It is the final day of a test match. India needs just 3 more wickets to seal the test match with a lot of runs to defend themselves and an entire three sessions. Whom do you think will open the day's bowling? You can expect the 'leading' pace bowler (currently Zaheer Khan for example) and the 'first' spinner (currently Harbhajan Singh). I would not say it is a bad decision. Obviously, you would want to seal the win as quickly as possible without letting things out of your control. But in the process what happens is you tend to 'overbowl' your main bowlers and 'underbowl' your sideline bowlers.

 

One can argue that it is fair enough as the last wickets are mostly easy scalps and your main bowlers deserve them for all their hardwork through out their career. Their confidence can also go up with two to three wickets added to their names and of course their stats page. But at what cost? One, you tend to 'overwork' your bowlers. It is perhaps the ideal situation to give your bowlers some much needed rest (that too in such a packed calendar now a days). Two, best chance to give your sideline bowlers some work to complete. Those two to three wickets will be a huge confidence boost to the young chaps who would want to cement their place in the teams. I think the twin benefits of the latter are much more than the possible benefits you get from the former. In case your main bowlers are out of form then it can be argued differently.

I guess teams like Australia consider this factor (though I know I have to prove this with stats or examples), if my memory serves me right. They trust their young bowlers to finish their job for the team.

No stats here. Just my plain opinion. If I find some time later I would back up my opinion with stats. It will be an interesting task in itself.