Mumbai Indians- Aiming Low

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Check out the sports page of the Times of India today, (sorry no link available for the article), Praveen Amre, the Mumbai Indians coach, says his goal is that his team reaches the semi finals of the IPL as the league toppers. As a Mumbai Indians fan it irks me that the aim of the coach is to reach the semi final. Err....Coach, why not aim to WIN the FINAL?

I would understand this statement if Amre was the coach of the Indian Football team that was playing in the World Cup for the first time. Then it would be alright to just put up a good show. But in a cricket league where you have Sachin, Sanath and Shaun in your team. That is just weak. To think that the owner of this team only aims high and seems to always exceed his aims.

In sports and in life you have the high aimers and the low aimers and usually, they get what they aimed for. 

The High Aimers

Have you ever heard Derek Jeter (the captain of the New York Yankees) talk about his team? For Jeter, his teammates and Yankees fans around the world, anything less than a season that ends in winning a championship is a disappointing one. Michael Jordan felt the same way during his days as a Chicago Bull. Jeter has won 4 world series pennants and Jordan 6 NBA championships. 

Tiger Woods set his sights on winning all 4 majors in 2008, the year did not go as planned, with injuries and other issues, but the direction of the aim not the execution are in discussion here. When he enters a tournament, anything less than winning it is not good enough. 

The number of athletes who aim high are plenty. There are the individuals, Michael Schumacher, Michael Phelps, Rafael Nadal, Valentino Rossi, Phill Hellmuth. There are the teams where the aims are shared by the players, coaches and most importantly the fans, Manchester United, Barcelona, the Australian Cricket Team and the All Blacks to name a few. There are the Indian sportsman, Mahesh Bhupati, Leander Paes, Saina Nehwal, Viswanathan Anand and the Indian cricket teams under Ganguly and Dhoni (not the one under Dravid)

The Low Aimers

There are plenty of these too, and as it is with low aimers, they usually miss their low targets. Andy Roddick is a classic case. Since Roger Federer and lately Rafael Nadal have taken over tennis, the former US Open Champion is just happy that he plays on the same circuit as them. If he manages to take a set from Roger, he feels he has achieved all he can for the year. Now I am not saying that Andy has the game, the skill or the mental toughness to beat the top two players in the world. But for God's sake Andy, stop getting excited and cracking jokes when you take a match to 4 sets. Try and aim to beat them and who knows, on one off for them day Andy, you just might win a match.

Sania Mirza (who I can't bear) is another professional low aimer. When she "storms" through the first round of a major, she talks about how she feels her game is coming together and how she is carrying the hopes and dreams of 1 billion people on her back. I mean seriously, Sania, get a life!  She then goes and crashes out in the second round and in the post match conference talks about how she is happy with the way she fought hard to take the second set to a tie-break. If she is happy with that, she will always be a second rounder. Sania is almost out of the top 100 now, not surprising, and I think she should focus more on doubles where she sometimes does well, along with eating fried food (she seems to excel at that too)

The others in the list include all the pre Ganguly Captaincy Indian Cricket teams, the current Indian Hockey Team, the San Diego Chargers, the English Cricket team, the Dallas Mavericks of the early 2000's, Notre Dame Fighting Irish (of the last three years). 

To end with a quote that I think is apt, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for." - Robert Browning.

Comments

  1. Ro Ro HolmsApril 2, 2009 at 1:39 PM

    love the comments on Sania Mirza. for a 20 year old "professional athlete" she break's down 5 times a year because of her amazing eating habits.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Niyati Tanna MehtaApril 2, 2009 at 3:29 PM

    I am surprised the owner of the Mumbai Indians has not pulled up Amre for a comment like this...doesn't fit the motto of Reliance.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 2, 2009 at 3:39 PM

    For starters Its a shitty format!! Its 90 percent luck and 10 percent skill. so the reason his aim is to make it to the semis is because from there on it is purely luck.you have to be consistent to make it to the semis but then on that day if things don't go your way or if you have no luck its all over.
    I have played T20 cricket and it is absolute garbage. Why do you even write about t20.
    I completely disagree with you on Sania. To have made it to the top thirty in the world is unreal...considering the kind of training and courts she's had to play on when she was a kid. Her ankles were ruined when she was 13 years old.I say hats of to any Indian athlete who does well at the international stage.Facilities are shit,coaching sucks and the government does not back you.You should see the accomodation given to these guys when they play the nationals. its absolutely appaling. So don't be too harsh mate, its not easy being sportsman!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pranav GandhiApril 2, 2009 at 4:26 PM

    Hey, thanks for the comment. I am purist too and love the 5 day game but what can you do, T20 is not going anywhere...

    I agree with a couple of your points. Sania in the top 30 was fantastic and she deserved all the credit then. It was a great achievement. The point of the post though was more about where she set her goals once she reached that position. I agree that 2008 was tough with injuries but what about 2007? In August 2007 she was 27th in the world, but even at that time she seemed alright with early round exits. Her comments, behavior, remarks in post match interviews indicated comfort with the fact that she never moved to the next level. It was too casual. She was alright with aiming low. The ones that have succeeded over time, Bhupati, Paes, Tendulkar, Anand, have never stopped being hungry, always wanted more and aimed higher. It can be seen in their comments, body language and results.

    The second point I agree with is the facilities and conditions that Indian sportsmen and women have to combat. It is not that our government does not make things easy, in fact they go out of their way to make things hard. I have read and heard of some terrible stories that our sportsmen have had to endure and I am currently doing some ground work for a future post on the blog....

    Thanks for the comment

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousApril 3, 2009 at 1:12 AM

    We're still going to win the damn thing anyway.

    ReplyDelete

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