How did they Win it & How can you too!

 In the final analysis the West Indian team won the t-20 world cup at Eden Gardens beating all odds. Here was a team who lost to Afghanistan, the only upset in this tournament and still became the world champions. How is that possible? What drove them to success? I thought over it and here are some of my observations:

1. Turning adversity as opportunity: We all have heard of the problems senior West Indian players have with the West Indian cricket board. In past it has led to tour cancellation mid-way and strife among senior players. These players were not even ready to accept the terms WICB put in front of them before picking the team and several deadlines were issued for the acceptance of the same. This is no fun, when someone who should support and encourage you to participate in a global event is actually helps you create rift. How do you respond to the board? And here is what they decided to do. They told themselves that lets win the cup and let the world and board know that they won despite it and if they chose to support, then imagine what the West Indian cricket will achieve. They turned the adversity to opportunity by framing their problems differently. When the entire world is waiting to hear from you, especially after winning the cup, is the right time for you to respond to them. Sammy & company were bang on and what, the WICB has indeed offered an olive branch to these proud winners.

2. The deep motive: Darren Sammy doesn’t mince words when he says that a comment by Marc Nicholas really hurt him and his team a lot. In one of his article, Mark called the West Indian cricketers with people with ‘no brain’. While Mark has offered his unconditional apology, it has already done its trick by galvanizing the team into one unit. All of them wanted to prove Mark eat his word and prove to the world that there is a method in the madness which people don’t see in West Indian cricket. Sometimes, harsh comments can actually set up a context for you to prove to others that you are much better than what others said about you and they didn’t have any business to ridicule you. A word of caution, the negative comments on a person can also demotivate him/her and isn’t necessarily a good motivational tool. It depends on the person’s resilience and ability to withstand negativity and then perform. Few players like Virat Kohli always say that where he plays in an hostile environment, it brings best out of him but then its his personality & it might not work for everyone.

3.Knowing the conditions well in advance: It won’t be wrong to argue that this West Indian success owes much to the advent of the Indian Premier League (IPL). IPL created superstars out of men like Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine and they are toast of their teams success in the event. Pollard, the mercurial all-rounder of Mumbai Indians became a million dollar man without even playing a single test match for West Indies. Then you had Gayle without which you can’t even imagine RCB. Almost all the batting records in IPL is in his name and he has singlehandedly won several matches for his franchisee If Pollard and Narine started the Caribbean invasion of the IPL, it was Gayle who soon became its poster boy. Winning matches singlehandedly for Bangalore. You have Simmons, Sammy, Samuels, Bravo, Gayle who after playing for IPL over the years have understood Indian conditions, grounds and pitches so well that it is difficult to believe that they are playing away matches even when they play in India. So here is the lesson, be well versed to the conditions you are competing, today or tomorrow it will help you.

4.Everyone is a hero: A lot depended on Chris Gayle. He was supposed to win matches single-handedly for the West Indies. He flopped in the semifinals as well as in the finals. What happened next is the stuff champions are made of. In the team someone else took responsibility. In the semifinals it’s the other opener who played a gem of an innings and in the finals it was Marlon Samuels who played a blinder. When there was an opportunity to showcase talent, players grabbed it. There were new heroes, there were newer scripts. Everyone backed each other and ensured that they played their role to perfection. In a team sport, you need everyone else to fire and don’t depend on one individual, which wasn’t the case with team India, the other semifinalist. They depended a lot on their star batsmen, i.e Virat Kholi and where there was an opportunity for others to step up their game they floundered. How can you win if all of your players are not trying to raise hands and take responsibilities? West Indians did it and they were the champions. 

5. The Leader who can ignite the fire: Darren Sammy is an interesting character. In the entire world cup he faced 13 odd balls and bowled 12 balls in all six matches, which by any standard wasn’t a top performance. Only great thing he did was winning all the SIX tosses and taking correct decisions throughout the tournament. Is that enough for a captain? I think what Sammy did was to unite the team to one cause. He shared his pain of being called ‘brainless’ with other team members and ensured that they felt his pain as their own pain and played to restore pride. In a way Sammy was lucky because his performance will hide behind the trophy but the fact remains that if as a leader you can really fire up your team, the team wins even when the leader might not have achieved significant result personally.

Someone said, success has many fathers but failure is orphan. Now we can find several reasons for the west Indians success at the world cup but we should also remember that being underdog also gives you advantage as you can play in a manner in which you don’t have to lose anything. 

Would love to hear readers perspectives on the same.