Firstly let me declare my hand, I am not a faithful West Indies cricket fan. I am drawn into the role of spectator in our home, when my husband is watching cricket on television. This usually involves him screaming and shouting at the top of his lungs as if the players could hear him through the television screen.
However, the recent International Cricket Council World Twenty20 International (ICC T20) cricket match between the West Indies Men’s team and England played on April 03, 2016 has left me craving for more. After England scored 155 runs for nine wickets, I felt that this target would see the West Indies crumbling in defeat. With every wicket loss by the West Indies, I kept saying, we are done, there is no way that the West Indies cricket team could win the match.
With every four runs that were achieved by the players, my hope rose somewhat, and with every wicket loss, I kept dying a very slow death.
In the last over of the match, the West Indies team needed 19 runs from a mere six balls. It was at that stage that I felt it was all over. As usual, staying true to myself, the forever pessimist, who seldom saw the glass half full, only half empty, I felt the West Indies team should pack their bags and come home.
How could I have gotten it so, so wrong! The batsman, Carlos Brathwaite, yes, I even know his name, hit the ball for six. I was shocked, second ball, another six runs, I was screaming louder than my husband, third six I was jumping so high, I might have touched the ceiling. Fourth six, I was screaming and running through the house like a mad woman. At that moment, I had no idea that I was capable of demonstrating such emotions, after all, as an introvert, people scarcely hear my voice.
Suffice to say, that after this cricket match, I have been converted to a T20/20 supporter. Consequently, this match has taught me so many powerful lessons:
- Never give up – Always keep striving until you reach your goals.
- Perseverance seldom fails – Despite the many challenges and difficulties one experiences, these can be overcome by continuing to focus on the prize.
- Keep fighting to the end – the fight is not over until you reach the end. Do not give up during the battle because you may be so close to victory.
- Have Some Faith – believe in something or someone. Trust a little.
- The extraordinary value of teamwork – the famous saying “a team is as strong as its weakest link” came back to me. When every member in the team plays their respective roles, everyone wins.
Yet there are so many more lessons from this match, however the last lesson really resonated with me in my day to day work as a member of a matrix organization. In that for us to be truly successful in improving lives in the region we need to continue to work hard as a team with one voice.
Moreover, this game reminded me so much of the phrase “Yes We Can”; and yes, West Indies cricket players you can, and you did! Congratulations on a well-deserved win. Champions, Champions, Champions!!
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I loved this blog Janette and the lessons learned from the West Indies cricket team!! They’re all the more important when you consider that the best players of a region of 5 million people beat the best players of a country of 1 billion people… and even so the West Indies cricket team won. The immensity of this extraordinary feat is something to celebrate and extract lessons from, like you have well done.
I’ve been surfing online more than 2 hours today, yet I never found
any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for
me. In my opinion, if all web owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the net will be much more useful than ever before.
I am in total agreement with the lessons learnt. Well done Jan!