A DEFEATED MINDSET

On the whole I am very positive and rarely throw the towel in. The greater the challenge the more I thrive and enjoy it. If something was easy then where is the fun and sense of accomplishment.

I used to play league cricket when i lived in England and even though I was born there I had to join the club as their overseas signing. A bit bizarre and also a bit daunting at the same time as it is a lot to live up to as their signing.

I can recall one of the matches where I lost my rag with my team mates.It was a limited overs game against the top team in the league. Limited overs is when you each team has 40 overs to bat and the entire game is over in about 6 hours.They had two brothers in the team that were international players at the time.

My team was made up of a mixture of all sorts from builders, plumbers, guys from the corporate world and students. No real stars but all enjoyed playing and tried their best.I have always said that if you have a team of committed players and no stars you will do better than expected.

The other team batted first and did rather well and posted a large score but in my mind challenging and doable. The grounds in England are not huge and it wasn't difficult to break windows. I don't have the patience for fiddling around for hours and enjoy striking the ball if it is in my arc. Even in my school days the one ground was so small it was by a motor way and I didn't want to bat.

I lost my rag when i heard the talk in the changing room when someone said that we should target a losing draw. This was foreign to me as you either won or you lost. Apparently you can draw a game in this league if you don't lose all your wickets. I took off at all of them calling them all sorts as they had lost the game in their heads already. This was my weekend and I was there enjoying myself and saw this as an opportunity for someone to step up and show everyone what they are capable of.

I was batting at number 6 but I put my pads on anyway during the break. I wasn't the captain but I told them if I saw them playing for a draw I was going to promote myself as that was not how I played. We only needed just over 6 runs an over so we were chasing around 260. Within an hour our rate had slipped to needing over 8 runs an over and now asked if I would go in next.

That day four of us did rather well and it just shows what a little belief and confidence can do. We embarrassingly broke two windows and hit 3 cars in the process of getting close. In the end we lost by 5 runs and my argument was if they had believed in themselves we could have won it. What the game had done though is it made the club re look at the players they had in their team and dropped over half the team. Most of these players had been in the team for years and were guaranteed of a spot season after season. I didn't finish the season with them in the end as i had other commitments to fulfill. Changing the team and adding fresh blood was the best thing that happened to the club as they went on to the semi finals the following year.

It just goes to show what a positive mind set can do and one must never settle . It is not over till the fat lady sings and that is so true.