Talent is Useless

This post is from my wordpress blog. Harsha Bhogle on Excellence.

Yesterday I was watching a video of a talk given by Harsha Bhogle in IIMA a few years ago. Wonderful talk, longish, but worth the time. Here is the complete video Part1 , Part2 .

He mentioned that Indians are big on glorifying Talent. And he was primarily talking about the Indian cricketers. Talented stars in India are feted till they get turned into arrogant Divas who make big dollars but no runs. ( He didnt say all this – it was my addition, its my blog yaar – come on) .... readon

Driving in Rain

an emergency trip to chennai turned out to be quite eventful.

while on the way the tire blew up - first such experience for me and I thought the car would disintegrate. I was going at around 90 kms/hr when this happened. But, could I believe my luck when the car stopped right next to a automobile garage.

I just couldnt beleive it-here I was somewhere near ranipet - and apart from this garage for atleast another km on either side there were no buildings. But, I just got it repaired right away and moved on.

The real challenge wqs while we were returning. It was a night drive with rains from Ambur onwards. the rain was not torrential , but bad enough - the visibility was bad. Infact a few times I felt the car slide sideways maybe a few inches not more - but that was enough to bring down the speed to around 60. There were quite a few cars whizzing by at 100 even in that rain.

I guess they had very good tyres.

Dhoni

Yesterday I sat through the India / West Indies match - right upto the 18th over and even until Harbajhan Singh batted I was counting on an India win. 16 runs look big but I feel it was quite close. Now as India seems almost out of the tourney - there doesn't seem to be any point in picking hairs as to why we did'nt make it.

But, I hope before the next tournament starts - the Indian team is able to bounce back. The team desrves it - on a good day when even 2-3 of our batsmen are playing to their potential we can beat any team in the world.

I guess the one reason for this supreme confidence in the Team is - Dhoni.

The way he leads the team is like a running lesson in Leadership. The various learnings that can be had and more are listed here . Dhoni is truly and inspiring persona.

One of the things which stand out are

• The ease with which he accepts the result. If its a win - he is gracious in his praise and if a loss he accepts the mistakes takes the learnings and moves on.

There is no blame game.The match is over buried - another match a different day start afresh.

How has a manged to distill such traits at such a young age. He is not 30 yet.

He doesnt mince words and takes his critics head on at times but mostly he sticks to being a cricketer - without getting distracted by the entrapments.

Here is what Albie Morkel his csk team mate mentioned recently about dhoni “He is calm and relaxed. If he is upset with something or any player, he doesn’t go out and rebuke them, but goes to the coach. He soaks pressure and brings the best in every player.”

He soaks the pressure. Not many cricket captains come to mind who deal with on field mistakes the way dhoni does. The max is a glare. Thats about it. Time just move on.

The ability to live in the present even in the pressure cooker situations. At any given time it almost feels like he has an aerial view of the cricket field while still being in the thick of the action.

The volume of praise coming his way is not going to end soon . A loss in one tournament is not going to make any difference. Infact, it was just a week before that Dhoni and his men finished a marathon 45 days plaing 59 games amongst themselves as part of the IPL. The players in the indian team were pitted against one another as part of different teams. It would take some time to get back the right dress room atmosphere. Coming into a 2 week event where loosing 2 games in a room can mark an end to your chances .

So lets say it was good the Team got out . Gives us a much needed break from cricket for sometime. Before we again get immersed in the next tourney the championship league - whenever it happens.