A couple desi coworkers were mentioning some flare up in the cricket world and I decided to check it out… Very interesting stuff. The brouhaha erupted over comments from an Aussie player – Mathew Hayden.
SYDNEY, August 24: Matthew Hayden says Australia are the leading cricketing team in the world because its players play as a team whereas cricketers from the sub-continent, including India, play for personal milestones.…‘‘In one-day cricket, if you get to 70 or 80, you can obviously get a hundred by just batting carefully but we just donÂ’t do that. It affects a batsmanÂ’s statistics but we just donÂ’t go for those personal marks,Â’Â’ he said.
…‘Counties like India suffer from that. We back ourselves against those countries because theyÂ’ll get two or three players in the 70s and beyond and theyÂ’ll be eyeing off that personal landmark and it will cost their side 40 or 50 runs as a result. Pretty much all the sub-continental sides are like that. They really can waste a lot of time and thereÂ’s no time to waste.
God, if I knew more about cricket, I could fully appreciate the significance here… BUT, there’s some interesting commentary in this column responding to Mr. Hayden –
Why there’s an ‘I’ in Team India
The self comes before the team because thatÂ’s our way of life
HARSHA BHOGLEIt would be tempting, and egotistical, to ignore Mathew HaydenÂ’s remark about players from the sub-continent being selfish. You could call it gamesmanship, and there will be a substantial element of that, but if it hurts there is probably some truth to it.
…It is my hypothesis that in over-populated, and therefore insecure, countries the self will always dominate. Feelings of comradeship, of surrendering the self to the wider cause, can only arise in either a highly spiritual phase or where the performer has ascended to a level of personal calm about his achievements.
Where you are in a mob, and we are in a mob, self-preservation will always prevail; whether it is catching a bus, or getting out of a movie hall or getting admission to a professional college.
There’s some serious wisdom here.
I would have to agree with the Aussie’s comments. Having seen sports played in India and the United States, folks in India do try harder to define themselves apart from the rest individually.
However, I would say this is a result not of ‘overpopulation’ but more or less, not having a good infrastructure for incubating talent, and coaching it. The state of athletics in India is deplorable for having a sixth of the world’s population. Since teamwork and coaching is not stressed, and without a good system for identifying and cultivating talent, people simply fall back on instinct.
The first two paragraphs of that quote are unmitigated crap. The truth lies in the last paragraph.
I should clarify, I don’t agree with the Aussie saying Indians would sacrifice winning over personal milestones. You play to win the game, all professionals understand that. However I do think that the team believes a really good number from individuals is the path to victory.
ESPN page 2 has had a humorous running theory of the “Patrick Ewing” syndrome, where teams become overtly reliant upon their superstars for wins and fail to play as a team well enough.
This phenomenon of underachieving at times is not symptomatic to Indian cricket teams only, but happens in all professional sports where the right team is not put together. In India, this issue simply gets magnified with a billion people looking on.
For India to do better on international level sports of other categories, an investment needs to be made in creating a cohesive infrastructure for developing talent, and providing good coaching (Similar to American high school leagues, athletic farm systems, a proper collegiate system (NCAA), etc.)
This is sad vinod, but even worse than playing for personal milestones is match fixing by indian cricketers who loose games on purpose for money or play to win games for money (betting on teams knowing way ahead the verdict). India had to ban a couple of cricketers from playing cricket because of match fixing scandals. This is specially sad when most of indian sports money is spent on cricket and building stadiums for cricket and sponsoring one day games, while they spend lil. money in training athletes to compete for olympics more info. at this site http://www.thatscricket.com/watch/match-fixing/