| NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE |
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| 13th July 2001 - Page 4 |
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NEVER SAY DIE |
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What do the Australian cricket team, Pete Sampras, Michael Schumacher and the French football team have in common? One, they have dominated their respective sports for a number of years. Two, they all posses a quality known as the BIG MATCH temperament which actually means holding one's nerve and winning when it matters most. The French team is a prime example of this winning |
Africans we faltered against the New Zealanders and more recently in Zimbabwe, we waltzed into the final only to be soundly thrashed by a quarter-strength West Indian side. It seems that after putting all our energy into the league matches we then run out of ideas in the final. Since beating the Australians in that historic test series we have done nothing to show that it wasn't just a flash in the pan. Although |
Australian cricket team to give up when Lance Klusener needed just one run to take South Africa into the World Cup Final. But neither of them gave up and in the end the satisfaction of their eventual victories in the semifinals must have been immense. It's not that Indians are not good at sports. We have an All-England Badminton Champion, a World Chess Champion, a world beating tennis duo and a World-class cricket team. But what the Indians really need is to just take a leaf out of the Aussie Book of Sport, which can be summed up in only one line- HOLD YOUR NERVE AND NEVER SAY DIE…. Dhananjaya Chak XI-B |
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the Euro 2000 tournament in the dying minutes of extra time. Manchester United's Champion's League victory is just another example of this. However, this is some |
“Sport is |
India drew the Test Series against Zimbabwe we had actually thrown away a golden opportunity to achieve that elusive over-seas series win. The need of the hour is to pick only players who can perform | ||||||
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thing that is sadly lacking in Indian cricket at the moment. India has not won a single major tournament in recent times. Despite the fact that we have one of the best teams on paper, we always seem to choke at the final hurdle. We have seen this time and again, at Sharjah, where we were blasted away by a mediocre Sri Lankan attack, the ICC knockout in Nairobi where after beating the mighty Australians and South |
even when the chips are down. Steve Waugh is perhaps the greatest example of exactly this. For someone who plays within his limitations he has performed brilliantly every time his side looked to him to get them out of trouble. Sport is essentially about self-belief. It would have been easy for Pat Rafter to give up when he was just two points away from losing in the semi-final to Andre Agassi. It might have been easy for the |
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