Looking Behind The Scoreboard: The Burden of Winning

If you think victory seems a perfect place to establish yourself, you couldn't be more wrong. It's great to win but like all sweet things in life, it comes with side effects. Many sportspeople in fact refer to it as the burden of winning. Once you have won, the world looks at you differently. The way you look at yourself changes as well. The next time you are in a contest, you are the defending champions with a record and reputation to defend.

It is important to know why you have won because if your own victory has surprised you, it only means that you didn't expect to win; that you thought it was a chance win, or maybe because your competitor flattered or that you just got lucky.

Having said that, it's not merely winning that counts but also the manner in which the win was fashioned. Victories achieved under hostile and difficult circumstances carry more pride and are cherished more - like away wins in cricket.

Nasser Hussain was proud of winning in Pakistan as Alastair Cook was when they won in India in 2012, while Rahul David was overjoyed at winning a series in England in 2007 and seemed just as happy to watch India win a Test at Lords in 2014. Inspite of winning against Australia in India a few times, the Test wins at Adelaide in 2003 and in Perth in 2008 were extra special, while the Australians look back at 2004 series win in India with great pride.

So while talent is always acknowledged as a quality essential to a winner, words like grit, perseverance and determination are used just as often. Indeed in the forward to Steve Waugh's autobiography Out Of My Comfort Zone, Rahul David wrote, 'Waugh gave grit a good name!' Apart from the fact that it's a great line, it also provides valuable insight.

Flair has always been considered glamorous, but grit has never been fashionable, and certainly not in India.

Real champions like to play in adverse conditions from time to time just to prove themselves. Dravid rates a century in England very high because it was scored when the conditions were stacked against him. This ability separates the champions from the challengers. In fact when the going is good everyone does well, but when the going is tough that's when you separate the men from the boys, as with the cricketers who do wonderfully well in the subcontinent but fail on bouncy wickets, with the reverse being just as true.

We often talk about the 'third year' in international sport being critical. When a newcomer comes along you don't always know what he can do, or what bags of tricks he possesses. By the second year you have sorted him out and he now faces a situation, new to him, where he has to confront failure and find a way around it, ideally by developing new skills or by becoming more consistent. The better players succeed in year three while the flash-in-the-pan kind wither away, unable to come to terms with heightened challenges.

To return to the burden of winning, once you have been labelled a winner you are expected to perform like a champion every single time. Often, not all successful people can handle the pressure that comes with these raised expectations. Since it is impossible to perform at peak when under great pressure, it's possible for people to crumble and fall apart.