The Power Of Contrasts Sparks 02

It is January 25, 2021. This is Sparks Part 02. The India versus Australia men’s four-test cricket match series has ended in a happy blaze. The players are back home. They have been away for a while. They have returned as heroes. They are now role models in sports. They are my role models in business, banking and commerce too.

Cricket Australia, the host, has expressed its grateful joy and joyful gratitude to the players, the coaches, the supporting staff and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Such expressions of joy and gratitude are rare. But this series was so different and so deserving.

India was thrashed and shrunk into submission in the very first test in Adelaide. There were expectations – especially among followers of Indian cricket – that India would lose 0-4 to the awesome Australians. But India won 2-1.

Shrugged off the disadvantages

The Australian batting line-up was indeed awesome. Its “home average” per innings was over 400 runs. India’s “away average” per innings was below 300 runs.

The Australian bowling attack – attack in every sense of that word – comprised the world’s best with a superior strike rate. Australia’s superior strike rate showed up when India lost 10 wickets in 128 balls in the second innings in Adelaide. That works out to one wicket every 12.8 balls. India was laid low. But stayed there only for a while.

India shrugged off its batting disadvantage and its bowling disadvantage in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It moved on and moved up from 0-1. In the end it turned out to be 2-1 in favour of India.

India won in Melbourne. It was 0-1 before Christmas 2020 and before Melbourne. It was 1-1 after Christmas 2020, before New Year 2021 and after Melbourne. Melbourne was the turning point. It came soon after the burning point. The embers looked promising after Melbourne.

The New Year turned the embers into sparks. Two wounded but doughty warriors stretched the tough match in Sydney to a “draw”. India carried on with 1-1 to Brisbane. The sparks began to glow brighter and began to grow into a flaming fire. Four feisty and fearless batsmen and four first-time bowlers earned a win. India left Brisbane with 2-1. India’s first-time bowlers and first-time batsmen – two of them were in both lists – grew up in about 36 playing hours in Brisbane to become first-class winners. Anything is possible.

Enterprise, enthusiasm, endurance

Everything has become possible now. India’s cricket unit – my unified reference to players, their families, their coaches, the National Cricket Academy (NCA), the thousands of cricket clubs, the hundreds of cricket foundations and mentoring institutions, the supporting staff and the BCCI – is now the epitome of entrepreneurial risk-taking, enthusiasm and endurance. These – entrepreneurial risk-taking, enthusiasm and endurance – are serious and significant attributes.

Entrepreneurial risk-taking, enthusiasm and endurance are attributes that are acquired through observation, through osmosis and through practice. These are not taught at the business schools. These attributes do not lead to the Nobel Prize in economics. These attributes do not lead to the position of the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These attributes do not lead to the position of the chief or governor of a central bank.

Those big prizes and those big, heady – big-headed – positions are the results of perfected preaching. Cricket requires practice. The dramatic turnaround in Melbourne needed exorcism. The lose-the-skin-but-not-the-game draw in Sydney needed endurance. The dazzling and daring win in Brisbane needed enterprise, endurance and enthusiasm.

Creative, aggregative

Cricket is a creative pursuit. Cricket is a creative practice. It is as creative and practical as gardening, cooking, singing and dancing. Cricket is a bit-by-bit, bat-by-bat, ball-by-ball practice that leads to an aggregate. It is wholly and totally aggregative.

Cricket produces entertainment, gate collections, and enormous revenues through advertisements. India is the cosmic centre of the vast world of cricket practitioners. India is the economic centre of the cricketing universe. It is the commercial capital of cricket.

Any economy – every economy – is as creative and as aggregative as test cricket is creative and aggregative. The runs add up. The wickets add up. First, in test cricket, the winning team has to have an aggregative score in two innings that is greater than the aggregate score of the losing team in two innings.

Second, the winning team ought to get perfect tens twice. These refer to the ten wickets of the losing team’s first innings and the ten wickets of the losing team’s second innings.

Contrasts on two counts

India was deficient on both counts in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Its batsmen had an aggregate “away average” that was lower than the “home average” of the Australian batsmen.

The ability or strike rate of its bowlers was about 25 percent deficient compared with the Australian bowlers. Put together, these two deficiencies – especially because of the absence of Mr. Virat Kohli, the captain – made Australia the odds-on favourite to win 4-0. It was quite Bayesian after the Adelaide rout.

Let us move from A for Adelaide to B for Brisbane. Australia’s bowlers in the playing eleven had 1,013 test wickets prior to the toss. India’s bowlers in the playing eleven had merely 13 test wickets prior to the toss. However, 11 of those 13 wickets were scalped in Melbourne and Sydney.

The contrasts could not have been sharper. The dice – the ball in this context – was loaded in favour of Australia.

Possibilities on many counts

The possibilities too could not have been brighter. India’s bowlers had too little – 13 against Australia’s 1,013 – to show. But of that “too little”, 84.6 percent had been earned in Australia. The possibility of getting 20 wickets at the Gabba in Brisbane looked bright. They could be earned.

Gabba was “home” to the “home team” – Australia. Gabba was “away” to the “touring team” – India. Prior to the start of the Gabba test, the home team’s aggregate home average per innings was greater than a whopping 450 runs.

By contrast, India’s aggregate away average per innings was merely 292 runs after adjusting for the innings of the two freshmen or debutants. That was at least 158 runs short of Australia’s awesome 450 plus runs.

But India’s home average was 468 runs by the same measure and adjustment. India had to feel at home in Australia. That required psychic adjustment and feel.

At home with the many possibilities

Psychic energy and personal determination are related. Personal determination and personal performance are related. What India did at the Gabba was to draw upon the psychic energy of its players. Its coaches made each of them aware of both the contrasts and the possibilities.

The contrasts pointed to a rout at the Gabba. But there were possibilities too. There were four pointers to the possibilities.

First, the draw in Sydney pointed to the ability of India’s batsmen to bat for as long as possible. Consider the second innings of Mr. Cheteshwar Pujara. There were two more notable second innings. They belonged to Mr. Hanuma Vihari and Mr. Ravichandran Ashwin. However, Mr. Vihari and Mr. Ashwin were injured during the Sydney test and were not in the playing eleven at the Gabba.

But they had shown what was possible, and how! Australian bowlers had some limitations in getting wickets. They could tire. They could be made to lose their psychic energy.

Second, the swashbuckling second innings by Mr. Rishabh Pant in Sydney pointed to the possibility of scoring freely and fearlessly.

Third, Australia seemed to be home to the Indian bowlers. Eleven of the thirteen measly wickets earned by Indian bowlers were earned in Australia.

Home? Yes, home! There were two bowlers – Mr. Mohamed Siraj and Mr. Navdeep Saini – who had earned their test caps in Australia. They had become freshmen in Melbourne and Sydney, in that order. This was the equivalent of birth. Birth in Australia! Australia became home! The many days in the bubble went on to make them feel at home.

Fourth, Mr. Siraj and Mr. Saini had an amazing effect on the others. Australia and the Gabba could be seen as home through the psychic eye and mind.

Mr. Shubman Gill reinforced this possibility immensely. Mr. Gill had made his debut in Melbourne. He too was born into test cricket as a batsman in Australia.

Mr. Gill, Mr. Siraj and Mr. Saini then had one more round of positive impact on Mr. Thangarasu Natarajan and Mr. Washington Sundar. These two were freshmen at the Gabba. Thus, Australia was home to five Indian rookies. They were born into test cricket in Australia.

India could, as a result, tap into what is usually known as “home country” advantage. Apart from Mr. Natarajan and Mr. Sundar, there was Mr. Shardul Thakur who had played exactly one home test in India. Mr. Thakur had no experience of playing, losing or winning in an away test and against the formidable Australians. Thus, he had had no scars!

Let us peep into the batting averages now. India’s adjusted – adjusted for the freshmen – “home average” per innings was 468 runs prior to the toss at the Gabba. Australia’s home average was a little over 450 runs. Thus, India won at the Gabba! It was 1-1 before Gabba. It then became 2-1 after Gabba.

India won by three wickets – only three wickets. India could have lost. There could have been a draw. But the 18-run difference – 468 runs minus 450 runs – worked in favour of India. India tapped into statistical distributions, range and psychic energy to earn a fabulous win.

The lesson

Contrasts are usually daunting. They point to the superiority of the opposing team. They make things insurmountable. But possibilities lurk inside the contrasts. “Being at home” with the contrasts and the tasks on hand enables the possibilities to overwhelm the insurmountable.

Contrasts and possibilities are both immensely useful. They enable us to tap into our psychic energy. They enable feeble sparks to glow brightly in the darkness of the night.