Friday, November 03, 2006

Lessons from a surprise

I was watching the dying stages of the second semi-final of the Champions Trophy for cricket today. Watching the West Indies beat South Africa was a pleasant surprise, and brought to mind a few thoughts. Since I am constantly introspective, like making linkages between different events and love finding patterns in life, these could strike you as not pertinent or even relevant. Anyway, here goes:

Lesson #1: Life always turns a circle – the West Indies were not one of the top teams in the tournament and had to slug with the likes of Bangladesh and Kenya to enter the tournament. However they have beaten Australia, South Africa and India on route to the finals. I like to think of life as a sine wave, sometimes up and sometimes down. This is true for almost everything I have seen in my limited experience, as true as it is for the West Indies’ fortunes.

Lesson #2: When someone plays for pride, get out of the way. Indian coach Greg Chappell commented that the Windies had forgotten to win – Brian Lara and his team took that to heart and beat India in the next 7 games that they played. Lara always makes it a point to mention this after each game against India. Therefore I would never hurt a person’s pride and would never humiliate someone enough for them to want to get back.

Lesson #3: Nothing is lost for ever – the Indian cricket team (I don’t think too highly of them, by the way) need not despair. All they need to do is dig deep within themselves and find a pride, a reason to play. They can bounce back. As can each one of us.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just a thought

definition of success is when you overcome an obstacle. so never underestimate the importance of the obstacle for success. can be in the form of criticism or failure.

so our best friends are those who are critical of us and force us to interospect and become better human beings!