Cloning through over coaching

I have been watching Wimbledon for the last quarter of a century. I have watched players switch over from Wooden racquets to steel to carbon graphite to composite racquets. Players have become bigger and fitter. The hitting harder and longer.

It suddenly dawned on me this Wimbledon, when during a break for rain, there was an aerial shot of the venue and on all the Courts the wear and tear was only in the baseline and never within the service box. This indicated clearly that hardly any serve and volleying is happening.

Over the years, the Wimbledon courts have become slower and the balls harder. This has killed the serve and volleyer. And when I look around, there are hardly any serve and volleyers in the game today. Roger Federer does have a fine volley, but his basic inclination is still to stay back and use his powerful ground strokes. Where have the McEnroes, Roscoe Tanners, Boris Beckers, Stefan Edbergs, Goran Ivanisevics gone? You can't see a single serve and volleyer in the top 50 of the game in the true sense of the game.

It also has something to do with over coaching at the junior level. Todays top players are products of Tennis Academies that are run on hard courts and follow a specific pattern of training. The wards are asked to belt the hell out of the tennis balls from the baseline irrespective of his/her natural talent and inclination. Result is mass production of similar tennis players. The pioneer in this was Nick Bollitteri.

Same is true of Cricket. You will notice that almost all the modern players play the same type of game. Whether batting or bowling.Batsmen are virtual clones of one another. Look at Australian team. Is there any difference between Matt Hayden, Mike Hussey, Michael Clarke or Simon Katich? Of the English team. Barring Peterson, every one else is identical. Even India. When did we last see a natural talent bloom in India after Sachin? Maybe Sehwag. In bowling? Is there not a sameness to all our pace bowlers? This again has to do with all the coaching academies children attend at a young age. It is also why it is such a pleasure when someone like Ajantha Mendis slips through the system and makes it big. What a delight to watch him bamboozle the batsmen!

Management also faces the same problem due to the sameness in the syllabus taught in the Business Schools. They dont teach you enterpreneurship at the Business School nor do they encourage it. So much the pity. But we shall discuss that topic through this blog another day.