“Success consists in going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Sir Winston Churchill.
As India crumbled again on a sunny Sunday in front of a packed house at the Oval, my thoughts hardly strayed from our own struggles at the Villas having crumbled again too the day before, albeit in front of two men and the skipper’s patient, hopeful but long suffering Gran.
If it can happen to the very best, as bad as MS Dhoni and company may feel, trust me the pain does not diminish whatever your level. As the song goes nobody loves you when you’re down and out.
Our First Team has had a bad year, that there is no denying. The wheels have slowly come off the bus only to see it career even faster downhill; such is sport and life sometimes.
In recent weeks the changing roll call of players representing the team as holidays and other factors kick in, may be tempted to believe that if we had a team bus, then it must have run over several black cats on the way to matches.
It is simple human nature to convince yourself that the Gods have turned to look the other way when times get so tough; the reality is that league tables this late in the year rarely lie. Our fate is written already and accept it we must; it is, so they say, only a game.
Cricket reflects life in so many ways. On good days you feel like a king and on lesser days look hopefully to the skies for a monsoon or two to save you from the inevitable.
However, to accept the plaudits and enjoy the good times, you have to endure days when you wonder why you ever started playing and why you continue; the game can simply stuff you in the nuts.
Look at India, a world class team of undoubted talents but shot completely of self-belief. Look at us, a bunch of club cricketers sometimes playing like we have never stepped on a field before. This beautiful, complex and maddening game is the ultimate leveller.
Some you win, some you lose, so goes the old adage.
You have to find a way to accept defeat with grace as much as it hurts and when the boot is on the other foot, display magnanimity as victors.
Only then can you shut the dressing room door and offer less than sympathetic hand signals and practice dance moves that would never make Strictly or a low budget porn film.
There is no truth in the myth that everyone is a winner; this is patently utter rubbish. If you have never experienced the misery of losing how can you appreciate what it takes to win? Sport teaches you that sometimes even your very best will not be good enough.
Most of us also play cricket for far more than the odd personal glory. That unique bond that many find and enjoy in a dressing room is priceless for those mature and rounded enough to value. It will be this most of us miss when the day comes to hang up the boots for good.
Losing can take many varying forms; for instance, whilst the mental pain of losing is bad enough, I would imagine the physical pain from being smashed to a pulp in a boxing ring or on a rugby field is much harder.
Likewise, some defeats can inflict huge psychological pain, especially if you have to face the same side later in the same season they have just drubbed you. Cricket can offer a quick death or a long drawn-out one; both results hurt the same.
However, the glorious unpredictability of the game often produces outcomes you could barely dream of. In short never lose hope because sometimes this is all you have; the “form book” is never the ultimate arbiter. If you lose belief then you are in the wrong place.
How sweet to be driving away from a game you drove to, nerves on edge and apprehension pouring from you, having taken the spoils of victory against all expectations; there are, I believe, few better feelings in life.
And if I have ever appeared slightly over excited by the odd win then let me take you back to 1977, proud skipper for the first time of our Under 14 team and with the records showing played 15, lost 15. Learning to lose? At that age I had passed my Masters!
The ship may be sinking but let the band play on because there are always better days ahead.
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