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Blame
Lara at your own peril
Brian
Lara
Brian
Lara is a terrible captain because of his inability to motivate
his players to perform on a consistent basis. This is the
opinion of "so-called" sporting experts across the
Caribbean region. A captain, especially a cricket captain
must be able to rally his troops to give of their best at
all times.
Colin Croft has even gone so far as to say that Brian Lara
is a "DISMAL Failure" as a captain (Colin, remember……….
glass houses!).
Those comments have been uttered by people who have not taken
the time to understand the processes involved in high performance
sport. Motivation is the final piece in the performance puzzle.
Motivation is the cherry on top of the whipped cream atop
of the slice of cheesecake at Il Colosseo, a fine dining restaurant
(I went there last night for my mother-in-law’s birthday).
Motivation, can further be broken up into two categories:
1. — Motivation to train and improve daily; and 2. —
motivation to perform in competition.
The motivation to which most of those “scribes”
are referring is obviously the second type. Simply put, no
amount of motivation, motivating factors or inspirational
people can make a poorly-coached player perform on a consistent
basis.
Coaches across the Caribbean only pay lip service to psychological
development of athletes. The truth of the matter is that psychological
development of young athletes is actually more critical than
the physiological development. Once a mind is allowed to become
weak it is nearly impossible to change. It is far easier to
improve fitness or technical ability than it is to change
mental processes.
Let the truth be told, psychological development of our junior
cricketers has always been left up to individual coaches,
who lack the required training, education levels and desire
to implement a parallel psychological training programme alongside
the physiological programme.
Let’s face it, playing with a ball and coaching with
a ball is far more exciting than spending hours in a dark
room developing visualisation techniques — especially
when the coaches do not understand or believe in the voracity
of this type of development. Consequently 99 per cent of the
training time is dedicated to physical activities while a
motivational speaker and/or psychologist is brought in on
the eve of competition to magically apply all the psychological
development in a two-hour (if so long) lecture session.
Without practising and perfecting mental skills, like concentration,
visualisation, problem-solving, self-esteem (confidence) building,
creation and maintenance of the individual’s ideal performance
state, relaxation and recovery, ability to break pain barriers
through mental conditioning, a winning attitude, or a selfless
belief in team……we are continuously producing half
an athlete.
Athletes who have not perfected these mental skills at a very
young age, simply cannot be motivated. Motivation is a product
of concentration, focus, desire and repetition of cognitive
abilities. Telling a player to "put your head down ...
concentrate ...we need you to consolidate the innings!"
— a player who was never taught or given the specific
tools to be able to retrieve — this skill is an absolute
waste of time.
So let us all blame Lara. It seems very easy to blame him
for everything these days. Lara is being made into the scapegoat
for the failings of the WICB and all the regional boards,
who are yet to institute a meaningful, holistic youth development
programme.
Furthermore, the bulk of our cricketers are not intellectuals.
Many of them were below average in school. This in itself
is not a problem; however it exacerbates the point that mental
skills development becomes imperative.
Imagine that Brian Charles Lara, our multiple world record-holder
and the greatest batsman in the world, only became aware of
the technique of visualisation in the year 2000, when Dr Rudi
Webster introduced him to the skill. This, after playing more
than eight years of cricket at the highest level and 25 years
of cricket in general.
Visualisation is a technique taught to five-year-olds across
the globe in all sports.
In the Caribbean, we have deluded ourselves into believing
that our poor performances in cricket are due in a large part
to lack of motivation or rather inspiration by the players.
This is a fallacy of extreme proportions. This attitude had
been fostered by our great teams of the past. We cannot accept
that we dropped the ball with regards to coaching development
and player development.
The fact of the matter is that we have masqueraded under the
veil of passionate cricket lovers without taking the required
steps to provide our young cricketers with the necessary tools
to ensure global success. Thus our boys go into battle, armed
only with their respective natural physical gifts. We are
now becoming aware that this is insufficient armour to repel
the onslaught of mentally-prepared opposing teams.
It is far easier for us to believe that we are losing matches
because of de-motivated players, rather than we are losing
because we are coming up against better-prepared players.
The fact of the matter is that in the bulk of the Test matches
which we have lost over the last ten years, we never had a
realistic chance of winning on a consistent basis, because
of lack of preparation. Motivation cannot compensate for lack
of preparation (which begins from as early as five years old).
Furthermore, the "Lara bashers" are always too willing
to point out the achievements of Clive Lloyd, the most successful
captain in the history of WI cricket. Let us ignore the fact
that Clive captained probably the greatest physiologically
gifted athletes ever assembled to play the game of cricket.
The fact of the matter is the psychological preparation element
of the coaching programme was only introduced into cricket
across the developed nations in response to this West Indian
juggernaut. It simply did not exist in the teams who Clive
played against.
Furthermore, Clive Lloyd did not have to motivate his players.
They were self-motivated. They played for success. Success
bred success. They inculcated in themselves as individuals
a hatred for failure. Malcolm Marshall converted himself into
one of the most feared fast bowlers in the world because he
wanted to be part of a winning team.
They played for the love of cricket; money was never a motivating
factor. It was an honour to play for the West Indies, an honour
not bestowed upon many. Over the last ten years every form,
Dick and Nagamootoo has put on the maroon jersey.
The mere fact that many people have been crying out to employ
a system of monetary incentives to motivate our professional
cricketers illustrates just how deep we have sunk into the
chasm of stupidity. A true athlete — a real winner —
is not motivated by material gains. That is the least effective
form of motivation available to mankind.
Ooops! Digicel and the WICB have just boasted about their
enhanced incentive programme. Perform well…….more
money, more money. Did someone shout, CLUELESS!!
The coach is responsible for motivation; the athletes must
be taught the necessary mental skills to enable a motivator
to have an effect. The greatest motivation in the world cannot
compensate for the lack of a holistic cricket development
programme.
While money may motivate the WICB to act, it certainly does
not work on athletes of sound character. So, continue to blame
Lara; refuse to recognise the problem and we the public can
look forward to more of the same until 2020.
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