Greg Chappell quotes Swami Vivekananda

Before England landed, there were talks about their weakness against spin….. the present ODI squad has Ashwin and Amit Mishra + Ravindra Jadeja and Yuvi as spinners.  All in a land of spinners ~ from the quartet of Bishan Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Srinivasan Venkatraghavan…. Dilip Doshi, Shivlal Yadav, L Sivaramakrishnan, Maninder singh, Anil Kumble, Sunil Joshi, Harbhajan Singh, Ravi Shastri to yesteryears Vinoo Mankad, Bapu Nadkarni, Subash Gupte, Vaman Kumar and more…

Here are some famous quotes :

v      We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.”

v      Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin ? to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

v      We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.”

v      If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

v      Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.

v      Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.

v      If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.

~ the above are some of the famous quotes of the great Hindu monk Swami Vikeananda, born as Narendra Nath Datta, 150 years ago….   Swami Vivekananda inspires the Nation by his deeds and grand pieces of advice.  To the above, there is another, quoted by a person, whom you perhaps never expected to know Swamiji.

It is Swami Vivekananda’s quote : “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. That is the way to success.”

Wonder, who used this ~ it is Greg Chappell in a syndicated column in The Hindu.  Greg was a great stylist and great batsman ~ troubled Indians as a coach though.  He strongly advocates unearthing raw talent of fast bowlers, which does sound logical. 

He started his column quoting words of Swami Vivekananda and says ‘Indian cricket would do well to heed the sage’s wisdom and make unearthing a dozen quick bowlers the immediate objective, nay, obsession. Success for Indian cricket will not come by accident. If consistent performance in all conditions is desired, then first there must be a vision. And then there must be a plan to realise that vision.’ I humbly suggest that the immediate plan must involve unearthing some enforcers who fill opposing teams with dread.

If I were part of the Indian think-tank, I would scour the country for the best fast bowlers with a view to building a pace attack that would cause rival batsmen to fear for their safety. Show me a batsman who relishes facing genuine fast bowling and I will show you a liar. I only ever played with one, Keith Stackpole, who enjoyed the prospect of facing fast bowling and was even upset if the opposition didn’t have any good ones! The rest of us breathed a sigh of relief. Clive Lloyd knew this when, having suffered 5-1 defeat at the hands of an Australian attack consisting of Lillee, Thomson, Gilmour and Walker in 1975/76, he decided to build his own ‘nuclear’ arsenal to gain revenge. I know India is different, in that conditions suit spinners more than fast bowlers, but the best teams that I have seen in the last 50 years have been colonised with quality fast bowlers.

He adds “Pace alone is not the answer. It is a combination of pace and bounce that generally does the trick. Good players eventually get used to out and out pace, but combine it with bounce and you have a sure-fire winner. If pace is in short supply, then go for bounce allied with movement in the air or off the pitch. Kapil Dev, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma have all shown that it can succeed at the highest level. Even on slow, low wickets, fast bowlers are still fast through the air. If the wicket is bouncing unevenly, bowlers who get the ball to the batsman more quickly and who hit the pitch hard will cause more angst than all but the very best spinner. Having found the best fast bowlers, I would then build the right combinations to work together. The obvious mix is a right and left-arm combination, but that is not the only way it can be achieved.

He ends his article saying “Throw caution to the wind, pick some of these boys and ask them to go berserk. What is there to lose?”

Whether India follows his words of advice, whether success is guaranteed  are all - not known, but this article of Greg Chappell does makes a worthy  read …..

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.