Team sports like ‘Cricket’ can give you a lot of management lessons.
Cricket is a team sport which has eleven players in each of the both teams with two umpires on the field to make every player abide by the rules and regulations of the game. Besides the two umpires, the technological revolution has added another non-human umpire which is called as the third umpire, and comes into picture whenever both the on-field umpires are unable to take a firm decision because of human limitations.
You might not be in a situation to spare hours to watch a cricket match but you would not like to miss the management lessons that every cricket match gives.
Cricket like any other team sport appears to be a very simple sport, in which one team has to bat and the other has to bowl. But what you normally miss out in these cricket matches is the preparation that takes place before any match or series of matches.
Right from selecting the coach, captain, players, the extra players and the support staff for the team for a particular match or a series of matches, the ‘Management Representatives’ of the cricket board of every cricket-playing nation, have to do a substantial amount of work in order to ensure that their selected team wins.
If you are managing and leading a team, then you would be interested to analyse these very decisions of the ‘Management Representatives’ of your country’s cricket board.
Let us now discuss two important management lessons related to Indian Cricket and analyze the decisions of the ‘Management Representatives’ of the Indian cricket board.
It doesn’t matter whether you are from India or any other country, because the management lessons in this article have been explained in a Layman’s language, so you do not need to have any prior knowledge about the persons mentioned in this article.
The top performing employee may not have the qualities to lead a team successfully
Sachin Tendulkar is one of the best batsmen that the world has ever produced. His fans call him the ‘God of cricket’ because of his extraordinary achievements in cricket.
You find very few people like Sachin in this world, who have managed their personal life so well in spite of such outstanding professional achievements without any controversy.
He played his first international match for India’s senior cricket team only at the age of 16, an age when many talented teenage cricketers find it challenging even to make their way into the junior team, that is, the under-19 team.
Sachin was given the captaincy of the Indian cricket team in 1996. His record as a captain was underwhelming. His team lost many more matches than it won. In case of One-day matches, Sachin’s team’s winning rate was a mere 31.5% and in case of test matches, i.e., Five-day matches, the winning rate was even worse at 16%. Finally, in the year 2000, Sourav Ganguly, another Indian cricketing great replaced Sachin Tendulkar as the captain of the Indian cricket team.
If you compare the batting records of Sachin and Sourav, you will find that Sachin had scored thousands of runs more than Sourav but as a captain Sourav was far ahead than Sachin.
When Sourav took over the captaincy from Sachin, the Indian cricket team was ranked 8th globally but under Sourav’s captaincy, the Indian cricket team rose to 2nd position globally.
You can write a book full of management lessons inspired by Sourav’s captaincy.
Apart from making the Indian cricket team successful, Sourav did many other ground work which paved the way for a very bright future for the Indian cricket team.
Under Sourav’s leadership, legendary players like Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir were groomed, who contributed significantly to the ‘World Cup’ victory of the team in 2011, a feat which was achieved after 37 years by the Indian team!
So the question to ponder is that what made Sourav a much better captain than Sachin, though Sachin’s personal achievement was far higher than Sourav’s?!
It was Sourav’s ability to influence and motivate his team members to get the best out of them, which made him a very successful captain.
Aren’t ‘Influencing’ and ‘Motivating’ two very important leadership qualities that the management representatives of every organisation should look for before promoting anyone to a leadership position?!
Having a Calm-Head is a prized Leadership Quality
Tell me one such person or a team that has never faced any tough or challenging situation.
Even if, you tell me one such name then I would say, that person or the team manages its challenges very efficiently, as if it never faces any challenges because there is no one in this world who does not face challenges.
Managing challenges efficiently without making much noise is one such Leadership quality which in itself is influencing, motivating and inspiring.
Indian cricket team’s tour of Australia in the year 2020-21 will be remembered and discussed atleast till the end of this century until another such incredible cricket event takes place.
This specific tour will not be remembered because India won this cricket series but because of some other incredible reasons.
In this series, India scored its lowest total of 36 in the history of its test cricket against the Australian cricket team and appeared to be poised for a humiliating defeat in this series of four test matches at the hands of the talented Australian team.
India’s defeat became evident in this series, after the Australian team humiliated the Indian Cricket team by crushing them to their lowest historic test cricket score of 36 in the first of the four test matches of this series, and to add to the woes of Indian team, its star batsman and captain Virat Kohli had to go on leave to attend his wife who was expecting their first child.
In Virat’s absence, Ajinkya Rahane was appointed as the captain of the team.
The records show that Ajinkya is a talented batsman but not in the league of his contemporary legendary batsmen like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
This is where you need to give credit to the ‘Management Representatives’ of the Indian cricket board including the coach of the Indian cricket team Ravi Shastri, who recognised and trusted the abilities of Ajinkya for the captaincy.
Though not in the league of Virat and Rohit, Ajinkya has a prized quality that both Virat and Rohit need to learn it from him, and that prized quality is his ability to keep a calm head under the most challenging situations.
In spite of the absence of the legendary cricketer and rugular captain Virat, Ajinkya led the Indian Team to the victory in this series in Australia.
Ajinkya led a team to the victory, which was playing outside the home country and which was humiliated in the very first match of the series by a very mighty team.
Pulling the team mates out of those psychologically challenging conditions to motivating and guiding them to a decisive victory at the end of the four test match series, is it not the work of a leader who himself has the calmest mind?!
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