What the hell else is ...

[Zooter]

a Coach supposed to do? http://worldcup.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1804057.cms What had transpired on eve of game against Lanka... Cricket News / Ashish Shukla PrintCommentMail PORT OF SPAIN (Trinidad), March 24: Team India, on the eve of the match against Sri Lanka, went to great length to ensure they won and qualified for the next stage of World Cup. On Thursday night, the team meeting was unusual in more ways than one. The evening started with medium-fast bowler Sreesanth occupying the centre-stage. Sreesanth's brother Dipu Santhan had penned and his brother-in-law, Madhu Balakrishnan, a singer in South, had sung a song for Team India-"Jago India" in a video format. In the video, one of the shots depict a young poor kid, with no cloth to cover his emaciated frame, holding the Indian tricolour and chanting the name Team India. After the song was screened, coach Greg Chapell addressed the team and asked them to compare the scene with the picture of that old lady who was trying to climb over Wagah border to watch India play Pakistan in a cricket match. Chappell, while comparing the two visuals, asked every member of the Indian team to remember that there are people in the country who despite their deprivations still support the Indian team with passion and spirit. Chappell asked the team members to try and play Friday's game for countless similar Indians who back the team even when they are struggling with their own daily existence. Chappell then coined a special slogan for the team's Friday's clash. Chappell called it "Let's do it for each other." The evening's meeting ended with all team members being asked to form a huddle similar to what they do in the field in celebration of a wicket gained. The evening and its message was clear: Indian team needed an injection of selfless lay and hence the slogan "Let's do it for each other." Too many for too long have put the interest of the self before the bigger cause and Chappell wanted to remind them of the duty. The visual exercise was also intended to coax cricketers to come out of their "comfort zone" and remember all those fans who support the team even though their life is miserable. The huddle of course was another exercise to make cricketers play like a 'team'-- it urged bonding to prevail. Passion, selflessness and responsibility, these perhaps then are three virtues which the Indian cricketers presently lack. ------------------------------------------------------------------ You can't 'coach' or 'captain' fighting spirit. If your batsmen don't fight (with teh body language to prove it) in do-or-die games, there's just nothing anyone can do. If India's domestic set-up doesn't find an support match-winners that SHOW CONSISTENCY, ... ... just keep expecting these results. Just that simple. Like Salil said, watching domestic Australian matches is more fun and has more competitive behavior than watch International cricket sometimes.

[Guest dada_rocks]

Re: What the hell else is ... too much presure being created unnecessarily

[Zooter]

Re: What the hell else is ... Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The only people who have shown tenacity and fight in their cricket--that competitive alertness have been Ganguly and Dravid in my opinion. Now--how do you get others to behave that way? Gangs, Chappel, Dravid, etc. can try to motivate them, but it has to come from within. I think it's this crop of players that are unreliable. I would add Sree to the Gangs, Dravid list if he improves his game. The talent isn't fully there--but that quality which PREVENTS HIM GOING INTO HIS SHELL definately is--remember how well he did after being left out of the Malaysia series??? We need to find people like that.

[Dhondy]

Re: What the hell else is ... That won't work with Indians, Zoot. if anything, it'll put even more pressure on their shoulders. It's their fear of failure that undoes them most of the time, and the only way to overcome it is to put their fear into perspective. I'd have taken them to a cancer hospital on the day before the match and shown them the uncertainty that cancer patients constantly live with. These are people who don't know whether they will be around next year. If they lose, they are outta here. I'd have got them to visit coastguard rescues, shown them the extent that livesavers put their own lives in peril, shown them the corpses as they were being fished out, just to get it across to them that it's a freaking game. Not worth the frozen feet and paralysed hearts. Go out there and enjoy yourselves. If you get out, doesn't matter. You are still alive. Your child still loves you. Nobody got hurt. What on earth are they scared of?

[head coach]

Re: What the hell else is ... yeah telling players to perform in english is "pressure" he should have told "bharat matha ki jai" then things would have worked common how long can we wear diapers? do some potty training please...

[Zooter]

Re: What the hell else is ... You're probably right Dhondy, .. their fear of failure seems to be central driving force in these do-or-die games. I just hope the currently non-existant Indian cricketing structure finds people that like a challenge. People that actually WANT TO face Glenn McGrath and see if they can beat him--it takes a special kind of crazy-person to do so. I think only people that enjoy challenges can have that sense of ownership--this is my game--this is my world cup. I repeat, ... it takes a special kind of wierdo to actually be happy that his opposing team has a Murali. To be fair, ... Sachin used to have it--don't know where it went?!?!?!?

[Bumper]

Re: What the hell else is ... Good thread zoots. I dont think any of these "out of the box" sessions is gonna help our cricketers. No amount of training or education can induce self belief. It has to come from within. Some have it, some dont. I dont think this attribute can be coached. Our cricketers have failed far too often, with so many diff coaches & psychologists, for me to believe otherwise.

[Dhondy]

Re: What the hell else is ... Yeah, it's a bit like wanting to present an oncology case in a packed hall at Sloan Kettering Memorial, innit? You wanna do it because you enjoy it. Almost like having an orgasm.

[Aditi]

Re: What the hell else is ... Noone can shove motivation down someone else's throat...it has to come from within. No amount of innovative ideas can change that.

[Zooter]

Re: What the hell else is ... Ejactly. I'm not trying to make myself out to be a hero or anything--but I did my very first externship at a local Clinic near my neighborhood in Chicago just last year. I don't think my palms had sweat that much ever before in my life--all I kept thinking was: please don't kill anyone, please don't kill anyone ... And you know what--there's no place else I'd rather be. The BODY LANGUAGE of the majority of our International-level cricketers in do-or-die matches is: I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE. That's fine--then move over for someone who does.

[Mandrake]

Re: What the hell else is ... About time our players stopped complaining about pressure.....cant handle the heat in the kitchen then ought to get the hell out of there....

[King]

Re: What the hell else is ... Don't you guys reckon the result is only the reality? Perhaps the players aren't good enough to perform whether under pressure or not any more. The pressure situation doesn't really sink in particularly when you consider they have been failing for a while now particularly in the batting department. We are way too used to lot of our batters scoring way too many runs in the past and still expect them to perform that consistently. What we have though is batters with past "Sale by date" and are just hanging in their while the fans are in some kind of illusion watching them blast the opponents away on tailor made batting strips back home. Bring in some youth in ODIs and let the coach work on them. The coaches cannot work on finished products that are not good enough anymore but they can work on unfinished products that may not be great but have the zeal.

[Bumper]

Re: What the hell else is ... Out of the last 17 ODIs, outside India, we seem to have batted 50 overs only TWICE.

[King]

Re: What the hell else is ... There you go that tells a story. This shows that : 1. Openers must have been terrible. They didn't provide good starts. 2. Middle order sucks. 3. Lower middle order and the tail simply reckon it is not their job to score runs. Get good consistent openers, a middle order that can occupy crease and train the tail to also show some responsibility when batting. Forget the flambuoyance for once, it is not getting this team anywhere.