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Quotable
"By "guts" I mean, grace under pressure"
- Ernest Hemingway quotes
"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure"
- Peter Marshall quotes
In all likelihood, Brian Lara will retire from one-day cricket at the end of this World Cup. What a tremendous batsmen he has been. I was fortunate to witness from close up some of his exceptional stroke play. I also witnessed how on many occasions he single-handedly altered the course of a match. Cricket will miss one of its great performers, someone with an extra-ordinary high level of skill who achieved excellence against the worlds' best. He will personally remain the greatest batsmen that I ever played against. So much so that when playing against him, I always needed to be careful not to become seduced by watching his exquisite stroke play.
I had a few opportunities to get to know him as a person and not a cricketer, which satisfied my fascination to see what great sportsmen are like as people. I remember having the chance to chat to Sachin Tendulkar after one of our games and couldn't believe what a gentle personality he had.
The same could be said for Brian Lara, an unassuming and likeable person who would appear unable to harm a fly. It was special to play with him in Jacques Kallis's benefit game against the South African team - his mere presence sparked excitement.
Afterwards we played a round of golf together and whilst he is half the golfer, he is no less competitive. I suppose this is a natural trait of all top class performers - they're hugely competitive in whatever their endeavours. So from my personal experience, I'd sum Brian up as a ruthless, hard-core competitor who gives nothing away, and who off the field comes across as a thoroughly nice person.
I suppose he will remember World Cup 2007 in the Caribbean as possibly a bridge too far, even for him. His individual heroics that we have become used to seeing over so many years were not there and maybe because of this the West Indies looked like a team without a leader.
I think his impact as captain was possibly based more on his massive contributions with bat in hand than his actual strength of leadership - and it was these contributions that seemed to spur the West Indies on to new levels of performance.
Sometimes even surprising themselves, they produced some stunning results leading up to this tournament. The likes of Gayle, Chanderpaul, Sarwan and Bravo have proved more than useful second in commands to Lara, producing some match winning performances. But when questions were asked of them as their leader faltered, no one stepped up to the plate. It was as though the responsibility of leading with match winning performances in high-pressure situations was not within their grasp.
My belief about World Cup Tournaments is that the players who are able to make a significant impact are the ones who completely understand what they need to do under high-pressure situations.
They are the ones who demonstrate the most composure when the game has reached a tipping point. And this requires a strong sense of self-awareness and maturity. Most often it takes many years of experience to learn to embrace these high-pressure moments and achieve something very special. There are very few of these players in this tournament - and Brian Lara is definitely one of them. Unfortunately for the West Indies and for his fans, he struggled to find form and never delivered to the level of his ability.
Lara made the comment about "not handling the pressure" with the added strain of the World Cup at home. Having had that experience myself and understanding what it feels like, I would be interested to know what sort of mental preparation each player undertook in seeking to cope with that pressure.
Whilst I had ten years of international experience leading up to the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, I still felt that with better mental preparation, I could have improved my performance under pressure. Those that are able to perform regularly under highly intense situations have either a generic self-belief or they have learnt how to manage themselves in these moments.
Paddy: On the contrary, I believe the success of many top sportsmen may in fact be based in a lack of self-belief. If one combines a lack of self-belief with the natural huge competitiveness you mention above, you get someone who is constantly striving to prove to themselves and to others that they're good enough, constantly trying to deliver the results that will improve belief in self. By way of example, I quote one of SA's most successful international sportsmen; 'I lacked self-belief throughout my career, often thinking that I didn't deserve to be playing for my country.' You remember that one Gazza?
Gary: You're right, that lack of self-belief in some areas did help to drive me to work as hard as I did, although right near the end of my career I learned to manage this trait better. While it may still have driven me to practice and train hard and long, I learned to override it with more appropriate task-focused thinking when out in the middle. This, along with managing my fears better translated to five test centuries in my last and most successful season.
Paddy: What do you mean by 'managing my fears better'?
Gary: In short, instead of fighting, hiding or denying them, I accepted that I had them, took them onto the field with me and used them to remind me to focus on the job at hand. It was much easier to perform when acknowledging and allowing them compared to the mental energy and distraction of trying to hide or deny them.
Paddy: I acknowledge how openly and honestly Gary speaks about these 'perceived' weaknesses or vulnerabilities (having self-doubt and fear). I guess one strong message contained here is that having self-doubt, low confidence, low self-belief and/or fear is OK. And that any one of us can still deliver results in spite of this 'psychological baggage' that we may have inherited in our childhood or later in life. It's been interesting in our Batting Excellence seminars that very few of the more than 200 players admitted having fears when facing fast bowling, yet after Gary shared his fears, most if not all then admitted theirs.
This acknowledgement is the start to being able to manage fears, rather than fears managing us and our performance. Hiding and denying fears seems the preferred modus operandi for at least males in high performance environments in SA, despite there being more effective ways of managing them.
Gary: For me that was certainly very significant. Moving back to the world cup, whilst SA have gone up-and-down in the last few games, what stands out is how Jacques Kallis continues to prove to everyone that he is a massive asset to South Africa. His form has been unbelievable and except for some indifferent batting when chasing down a huge target against Australia, he has looked like one of the few players who will have made a significant impact on this tournament.
I still believe South Africa have enough quality players in their team to win this tournament - unfortunately their lack of performance against Bangladesh and New Zealand have resulted in them having to win three consecutive games in order to do so.
It will be fascinating to watch their game against England in Barbados later today. This is where the final will be played and the wicket has shown to have really good bounce. This might well suit South Africa and prove to be an advantage. Either way I'm sure there will be something interesting to write about post the match.
Until next time
Gary
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