Indian Cricket: Patience is the key

As a fan, we always want our team to do well and win matches on a consistent basis. It’s our right to expect from every player to give their 100% every time they take the field, every time they represent our team. Because we, the fans, invest too much emotions and we want to get rewarded for it.

We try to catch as much cricket as possible. We try to follow every single ball, on TV, on social networking sites, on websites, via Phone calls, via SMSes and sometimes we even ask a random stranger for the score. Even during our busiest of times, we find out a way to track the progress of our favourite team. That’s the beauty of sports, it keeps us engaged.

When our team wins, we feel like a winner and celebrate it. And when we lose and start to lose badly, it’s natural to get angry or sometimes be abusive. We get disheartened, we start to criticize our players and we start cracking jokes just to hide that loser’s feeling inside us.

We must understand that Indian cricket is going through one of its toughest phases at the moment, where a win even on our home turf isn’t guaranteed. We need to show some patience during this period. We had a very good team in the past and we used to win more matches. Now we have to get over this fact and try to move on.

Today, our team is going through a transition period, we have a tough task of building a team, a good one. We will lose many matches, we will win some. But, we should be patient. It’s time to focus on the process, not results. We have to be ready to face short-term losses for long-term gains.

I know there are bigger risks involved in it but it’s a bit like investing in the stock market. Prices keep on going up and down, they keep on fluctuating but if you plan properly and hold on to them for a longer period of the time, most of the times you get rewarded. The emotions we invest, are priceless, no? And, we must keep investing, we have to keep the faith and shouldn’t be too much worried about these losses.

Also, we shouldn’t judge our new players on the basis of one or two games. We must give them a fair run before jumping to any conclusions. Let them learn from their mistakes. These lessons will help them in becoming better cricketers and India a better cricket team.

As a wise person once said, we shouldn’t judge each day by the harvest we reap but by the seeds we plant. Patience will be the key.