It's all in the mind...

“Battles are won twice, first in the mind and then out there in the battlefield” – Anonymus

The victory of the Indian cricket team in the recently concluded Cricket World Cup is a classic demonstration of the same. As Virender Sehwag said, the team had set their eyes on the WC final exactly a year ago in Dambulla in Sri Lanka. From then on, it was a focused effort towards just one goal.

The victory is important, more so because the pressure on the players was tremendous. Playing in front of the home crowd, the pressure of expectations, a cricket crazy nation which can idolize you and take you to the top in no time and the same nation which can bring you down faster than that all these were simply too much to handle. So as coach Gary Kirsten said, though physical fitness was one thing, being mentally tough and strong to handle all these was equally important. And this is what, the Indians did right.

I was reading an article on cricinfo a couple of days back and someone rightly said, that between 2007 and 2011, India has transformed from being a good team with great players to a great team with good players. A big part of this credit has to be given to coach Gary Kirsten, who has maintained a very low profile in the midst of all this hullaballoo. Taking over, when the team was in shackles, having clearly defined goals of becoming the No 1 Test Nation and winning the 2011 World Cup, and ending your tenure on a successful note, having attained both your goals, definitely has to be one of the greatest achievements for someone. A classic case of having a clearly defined goal and then channelizing all your efforts towards attaining that.

After a very long time, I cannot think of any one match in the entire tournament, which we won because of one single player. Every match was won by a combined effort, with the bat, with the ball and in the field. If one player failed to deliver, two others stood up to the task. The number of Indians in the top ten run getters and the top ten wicket takes just goes on to show what a coordinated effort it has been. The final was just another example of what has been happening throughout the tournament. Take the match against Australia, where the run chase was studded with three half centuries, take the match against Pakistan where the 10 wickets were equally divided among the only 5 bowlers. The fielding, particularly in the knockout games was simply exceptional. Gone are the days when people used to stop watching the match when a Sachin Tendulkar or a Virender Sehwag got out.

The amount of hard work, efforts and sacrifice that have gone into the achievement was clearly visible in the emotions that were flowing on the big day. Statements of maturity coming from people like young Virat Kohli are just indicative of that fact. When captain Dhoni kept talking about peaking at the right time, I always used to think that he is using a clichéd phrase. However, it eventually turned out to be exactly what he meant. The best of the performances seemed as if they were reserved for the most important of the matches.

Whatever written about the WC victory is incomplete without giving one man his share. MS Dhoni. What a man, what a leader. You can never understand what is going on in that calm mind till it actually happens. He has demonstrated it time and again. Some of his moves, though questionable ( he would have been taken to the guillotine had his moves to pick Sreesanth ahead of Ashwin OR promoting himself ahead of the in form Yuvi had failed), eventually turned out to be masterclass of an act. Remember the IPL 3 finals, and the way he had Hayden at the mid off, while having a long off as well, just to get rid of Pollard? All you need to now do is to trust this man with whatever he does, because he would have thought about it a hundred times and is doing it only because he thinks that it is the right thing to do. This man is surely going to be a role model for many and there is a lot to learn from him with regards to leadership lessons, management and strategy.

More than anything, it was the commitment towards one single and united objective, the desire to succeed and actions directed towards that desire that separated the good from the great. I have always got a feeling that, when time demands, there have always been players in other teams who have stood up to the demands and delivered. Take the case of Ricky Ponting in the quarters, Mahela Jayawardena in the finals, Andrew Strauss in the league match and so on. I used to feel why do we not have such players, who can make a match out of nothing, who can bounce back from the ground and go on to create history. This team has demonstrated that. Be it a Yuvraj or a Raina, be it a Zaheer or a Munaf, be it a Nehra or a Ashwin, be it a Gambhir or a Kohli, everyone has contributed and at times, when the match threatened to go out of control, these men have come up with inspirational performances to win it for India.