Champion performances
It’s a team game where there is a need to respect and keep every team member motivated and responsible. Seniors need to prove themselves more often and against bigger challenges, while junior members have to take care of routine challenges. When someone junior handles big challenges, then a new champion is emerging. However, the basic is that for every champion performance, a hundred routine things need to be done well. Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
In the end, Prithvi Raj Chauhan was tortured and killed in a foreign land by Ghori. Who cares what his individual record is. It is better to be a foot soldier in a winning team than be a king in a losing team. There is more satisfaction and comfort for the soldier in the winning team.
Need to stop taking things personally
The pressure of expectations comes from believing what others say. When Indian crowds say something, it is important not to take it personally. Crowds do it because they come for entertainment. The cricketers need to focus on their game and do the right thing as they have been trained for decades, whether the crowd cheers for them or stops cheering when the situation looks bad.
Specialized skills for difficult situations
Champion players need to build skills that take away the game from the opposition. Crumbling under pressure shows lack of character and lack of skills. It will be shown in performance of a cricketer who in the preparation for matches has not focused on handling tough situations well. Great and champion reputations are built in tough situations, not in easy times or in less demanding situations. A champion player is a lead performer – someone who repeatedly performs extremely well in diverse situations (don’t confuse this with good looking statistics).
Tees maar khan
A player playing to the galleries appeals to the lowest common denominator (i.e. appeals to idiots). In a similar way, there is a difference between someone fighting in a real war to someone who is in the non-battle field positions counting rice bags for the army supplies group. The job needs to be done well and well. However, to give gallantry award for counting the most number of rice bags is sheer stupidity. This example may look stupid, but many times, crowds do not recognize champion performance from non-champion performance. See how we just give high credit to statistics, 5 wickets or a century, without considering the challenge.
In fact, someone who plays in such a way (playing to the galleries) is playing for the opposition team. In our childhood, we used to allow more strike to batsman who scored slowly and did not pose challenge to win the match. When they batted more, they intend to help us win the match.