I’m sick of seeing it happen over and over and over again. Sri Lankan cricket team coming so close to the finishing line but being unable to take that extra step and go the last mile. It happened in 2003 world cup semi-final, 2007 world cup final , 2009 T20 world championship final and now in 2010 T20 world championship semi-final. In all of these events Sri Lankan team had done all the hard work (been lucky in some circumstances) reached an important milestone and just failed miserably to be counted when it really mattered. I can understand them putting up a good fight and being worthy loosers. But in each of these situations (may be apart from 2003 semi- final loss to Australia) our cricketers have simply failed to be counted. They have failed even to pose a threat to the opposition.
Why ?
More importantly why is it becoming a bad habit ?
Have they lost that spark, that extra bit of flare, that extra bit of thirst to show up and perform under presurre and deliver the goods when the stakes are high. It seems like at these key events all life and energy of our cricketers is just lost !!!. May be they are too overwhelmed by the situation that they try to be different. They try to deviate from the normal behaviour, normal way of playing and in doing so perish. It’s such a heart breaking scene. To see a Sri Lankan cricket team which in the past has been famed for taking risks, introducing novel way of playing cricket, perish so sheepishly as they have done in recent times at world stage. Do they lack their self belief ? Do they expect (or more correctly pray or hope) that just things would go their way and they would be handed a win on a silver platter instead of trying to make things happen ?
I firmly believe that as a cricketer one should have a fair idea and a good self assesment of what he can do. Then he should be able a asses a particular game situation (irrespective of whether it’s a final or a semi final) so that he can do the best to take his team in to a better position. I mean if you have never hit a six in your carrier to a a ball pitched just outside of good length chances are that you would not be able to do the same in a final or semi-final. In the same manner if you are suseptible to giving slip catches early in your innings the chances are that in a final or a semi-final you will have the same weakness. However if you have hit sixes with your eyes closed to a full toss just outside the legstump then you should not have thoughts crossing your mind ‘oh my god.. this is the final what if I mistime it..?’. It is such self doubt that will fail you when it most matters.
I think the best thing for Sri Lankan cricket team is to take each game as a final when going into a tournament and give it their absolute best. If this approach is a bit extreme then they should treat each of the last several games as a final (from the super six stage or quarter final stage). They will win some games very easily and loose some along the way. But it is important to treat each and every game as a final. In this way their mentality will not change when the actual big moment comes and they would at least have mentally gone through ‘few’ final matches. So any hickups or self doubts will not hinder them.
They should remember that ‘failure will destory you, but fear of failure will kill you’.
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