I have started playing cricket after some thirty years. I can't claim to be the best bloke around in cricket, far from it, but I am one of the best batters this team has got. I have even hit sixes and fours, and people recognize my prowess on the offside, and fielding arrangements are done accordingly.
This has surprised me to no end. Since nobody will read this, I can confess without the fear of being outed that I was never a good cricketer or athlete, or anything. In every sphere of life, I have been average or even subpar. But the show must continue, and it has continued so far.
When I started playing here, I was fairly certain that I would be exposed. My bluster will have to be eaten humbly as my bat won’t even come within an inch of the approaching ball. Tail-enders have a special place in batting, and someone like me, who can't bowl, bat, or even field, has a special significance during team selection. When I was a kid, I was given to the team that was theoretically stronger than the other. I would have created the balance. Never mind, this is the story I love to narrate to people for some amusement. Can't say if such self-deprecating humor is actually tumors, but I was very convincing while narrating this favorite lie.
But not when I could hit a six and curse my destiny for getting out the next ball. As you can understand, dear reader (that’s me), the first one was an accident, and the second the normal course. I’d flip the sequence, of course, and leave the field shaking my head in disbelief. Someone give me the Oscar, please!
Anyway, seeing me playing like this has surprised myself to no end, and I have been thinking if all these are actually how we train our mind? When a batsman cannot connect his bat with the ball, is it because he is athletically slow, or is it because his mind is racing fast to have swung the bat without observing the ball? Now that I have matured and my mind is relatively calmer, I could follow the ball properly, and my hand follows my eyes. Of course, I cannot play all shots, but if I am getting out these days, it is an accident, and not because I can’t play.
Therefore, an easy conclusion for me is that our mind holds the key to everything. How we play cricket, to how we score results as students. I have a kid growing up very fast. She is connecting with the world around her, she’s spreading her roots. As a father, my biggest lesson to her should be how to get mastery over the mind. Talent and all are not really something one should bother about. Every talented person is actually a master of a certain aspect of his or her mind.
That’s what I realized in my forties.
4 comments:
well done Anup. I was never any good at cricket. It was compulsory but when a team from another school came to challenge us, I was made scorer. I tended to lose concentration and the over would finish when I'd only recorded 4 or 5 balls. Fortunately I sat next to the other team's scorer, so I hastily copied his before the next over. They were charitable, I earned the nickname "brainbox" amongst all our rival schools.
oh, perpetual-lab.blogspot.com exists no more. See rochereau.wordpress.com, I've been posting a lot there lately
Hello Ian,
Glad that I found one reader! And expected it too :)
Yes, i couldn't access Perpetual anymore, but I have visited Rochereau a couple of times. Maybe, i should leave comments there to tell you I was here!
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