Malinda Words: Teams, team-thinking, team-spirit and leadership

During the second day of the three-day encounter between Royal and St Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia, a question was put to Kumar Sangakkara during a brief stint as a guest commentator. He was asked about the experience and pressures of a big match.

‘Enjoy the atmosphere, the cricket out in the middle, the great sense of fun when playing a big match, the pressure and weight of tradition, expectations…stepping up under pressure….,’ he said, referring to Royal’s fifth wicket partnership between skipper Dasis Manchanayake and Ramiru Perera, and also the salvaging operation underway between the Thomian pair of Charuka and Senadi.

‘Make sure that when you do go out there, absorb the atmosphere, use it to understand what you need to do in terms of your skill and then keep concentrating on your skill over and over again. Ask yourself “what does my team need me to do to this delivery?” and repeat that question over and over again. [It] helps focus on what needs to be done rather than the atmosphere and the pressure around you.’

What caught my attention is the reference to the team, ‘what does my team need me to do to this delivery?’ ‘This delivery,’ is key. In other words, each and every moment of the game, after all he did say ‘keep asking that question over and over again.’

Kumar Sangakkara’s success may be attributed to this mantra, which of course is one of many that can make for a successful career. Ricky Ponting attributed his success as a batsman to ‘treating every ball with respect.’ Nothing of ‘team’ was mentioned. Only Kumar will know whether he affirmed this theory each delivery he faced. His track record shows he has delivered. Ponting delivered too. Both won matches for their respective countries.

What needs to be done can be obtained from many sources, team-need being one of them. Understanding what the team needs does not mean that you could treat a bowler or a single delivery with disrespect. Even as you treat with respect bowler and delivery, what you do with the delivery can be determined by what the team needs you to do.

Thinking ‘team’ as opposed to ‘self’ is a cultivable trait and that cultivation requires consistent affirmation in practice. We don’t see any of it though. We can only read signs and assume. Dasis Manchanayake, the Royal skipper, had to play the innings of his life to take his team out of trouble. He scored a century and followed it up with a half century in quick time in the second innings. The first was a grind and that’s what his team needed. The second was free-flowing and that’s what his team needed. He bowled a few overs and took a couple of wickets. The team needed these wickets. He plucked a couple of incredible catches. The team needed him to do so. He was constantly talking to his players, probably urging them to stay focused. He made field changes and bowling changes that delivered wickets. He was not perfect, for he got out in both innings, but seemed to have been perfect in asking himself the question that Sangakkara referred to: ‘what does my team need in this delivery?’ And not only when he was out there at the crease.

By the time the last over of the day came around on the second day, Royal’s Ramiru Perera, who also scored a century in the first innings, helping Dasis take their team out of the woods and into a commanding position, found himself close to a second innings fifty. The instructions from the dressing room were apparent; quick runs in anticipation of an overnight declaration. Ramiru was facing Akash Fernando, who had already taken eight wickets in the game. Raminu delivered for his team, scoring 17 runs in the five deliveries he faced inclusive of two sixers. He missed out on what would have been a deserved half-century by just four runs.

In a losing cause, Akash Fernando was outstanding. He delivered for his team in both innings, ensuring that Royal didn’t get off to a good start, as did Senesh Hettiarachchi who scored a dogged 46 in the second innings. They both may have thought ‘team’ when bowling or facing each and every delivery. It is also significant that all seven bowlers called upon by Dasis Manchanayake delivered by taking at least one wicket. Again, 'team.'

The references are from the Royal-Thomian cricket encounter, 2023, i..e. the 144th Battle of the Blues, but it is not a Royal story or a Thomian story or a Royal-Thomian story. It is not a story that’s relevant only to cricket or to sports in general. It’s a story about collective needs and an individual’s decision, determination and discipline. Eminently applicable to all human endeavour and perhaps it’s the abject poverty with regard to these kinds of traits that has brought our planet to the woeful state it is in right now.

Tomorrow may be a better day if we thought ‘what does the larger collective require me to do.’

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

19 March 2023

Teams, team-thinking, team-spirit and leadership

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