The CouchExpert

Sridhar Diwakar

August 18 2011

The English cricket team thrashed us. Let’s face it!

While the easiest thing to do now is castigate the ailing indian cricket team and sit back, there is something else which must be triggered. A Renaissance.

India needs to build for a stronger future

If you have a look at all the great teams in any sport across all eras, there was a point when they made a distinctive choice. First they built a vision plan. A strong definitve one. Then they built a talent base – and when I say built, they toiled. They developed processes, well researched ones. Processes which are independent of people. And finally they made sure that everything evolved – with time and with the latest developments, but around the strong theme laid down in their vision plan.

This is the need of the hour. This is the renaissance that i am talking of. A renaissance which starts with a choice.

And it’s not just in cricket. This renaissance has to come to each and every sport in our country. We have abundant talent, but we lack the necessary expertise and the will to nuture it. The Indian cricket team in England had all the big names in Indian cricket. Yet, they floundered. Some, due to injury, some due to lack of application. Some were simply outclassed. The Indian football, hockey and rugby teams have been thrashed on various occasions too. And what have we done to change all that. Has there been a change in the system as such? In the coaching and training methods? Not just in the national team but in the teams right from the grassroot levels? Has there been an upgradation in the infrastructure? Nope. Then why and how do we hope?

It’s not a series that we lost. It’s an opportunity lost. And with each opportunity lost, it’s respect lost for our nation. It’s the hope in the next gen’s hearts that we have lost. Unquantifiable yet profound!

If ever we were waiting for a jumpstart to set things right, this is it. It’s time to leap ahead. At times the best way forward is to step back a little. In this case we have been pushed too far back. Let that be an excuse for us to catapult ahead. Let’s prepare a robust system. We might still end up losing, but we will succeed in breeding many more Tendulkars, Bhutias, Bhupatis, Anands, Gopichands and Sainas. A fact that is sorely missing now. This is what will change the face of sports in India.

As Theodore Roosevelt so aplty put: “It is only through labour and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”