Just Do It

For a certified sports nut, I have written only one post on sports so far. One reason is that the newspapers and websites write reams about all sports events and I don't have much to add. The objective of this blog is to give a different perspective to issues on hand and to reflect my thoughts.

There has always been a question whether sport is an art or a science. It used to be an art till the early 80's. We saw some amazing natural talent flourishing and taking the centre stage. Bobby Fischer in Chess, John McEnroe in Tennis, Diego Maradonna in Football, Ayrton Senna in Formula 1, Viswanath and the spin quartret in Cricket, Ashok Kumar in Hockey, the Brazilian football team as a whole, Michael Jordan in Basketball, Jack Nicklaus in Golf..................well the list is endless.

But come 80's the scenario changed. Coaching took the centre stage and sports persons came out as if from an assembly line. Let us limit this post to Cricket. I recently saw Sohail Tanvir of Pakistan bowling of the wrong foot ( a la Mike Procter) and was shocked. How the deuce did this guy get through the filter. Though the one day cricket has ensured that some unconventional batsmen are encouraged, as far as bowlers were concerned they were all clones. Look at all the fast bowlers around, you will notice that you can replace one with another and no harm will be done. Same with spinners. Bowl tight, don't spin, bowl flat, don't flight is the mantra. It is also one of the reasons you are not likely to see the next spin bowling sensation in the near future. Can you imagine another Murali or well an Abdul Qadir (his was a class act. I rate him higher than Shane Warne who was never effective against sub continental teams. Warne was mentally tougher and privileged to be part of an all conquering Aussie team, but Qadir was an absolute genius. To bowl a googly well is a difficult proposition, but he had 3 different superb googlies) in the near future?
As I said, we do have unconventional batsmen. But the surfeit of coaching has killed creativity and has not allowed the latent talent to bloom. This can happen in an organization too. We try to mould our employees to be clones without recognizing their innate talents and making effort to polish them. We have regimentalized them - Wear Suit, come on time, do what we tell you, take your money and go home. I beg to differ. The company will never generate new ideas and will never attain greater heights if it allows creativity and individuality to die.

There is after all something to having a Virendra Sehwag in the team, isn't it? If anyone watched his 309* (at the end of day 3) in the Chennai Test vs South Africa today, you will know what I mean. He has turned the match in its head single handedly, kicked alive a dead test after South Africa scored a mammoth 54o in the first innings, had them running for cover as i write this and have given India an outside chance of winning the Test. It is the instinctive geniuses like Sehwag who makes the impossible possible.

Nike, the kit sponsor of Indian Cricket Team don't require a better endorsement for their slogan 'Just Do It'