Cricketers and the Infinite Game
We are slowly reaching the 10th anniversary of our iconic world cup victory. Since then, a lot has happened. The game of cricket is an indelible part of our lives, which I specifically felt during the time of lockdown when major tournaments were moved or had been postponed.
With moving time, we develop a different eye to look at the same things. We tend to include multiple touchpoints with additional dimensions to derive our conclusions or assumptions.
As I look 10 years back when Sachin scored a match-winning 85 against Pakistan, I had objectively assessed his performance and impact on the result, which was highly one dimensional; a statistical fact based on score and technical difficulties associated with the game. Since I was much younger, I looked up to cricketers solely for their performances and how they helped in winning the game.
However; till now, I was missing the whole point! Bear with me.
This thought process was highly finite. In objectively and technically assessing the performances, we have certain parameters and variables that we choose to evaluate.
1. There is an agreed-upon objective — how a player helps in winning the game?
2. Known rules — how a player showcased his skills for given technical difficulties (playing conditions, the format of the game, venue,…)
3. Known Players — how strong are the opponents.
There is a plausible reason behind this thought process. Since I was younger and studying at school, I had a finite view to evaluate things — as I had a clear objective with known rules and known players. My KPIs were perfectly defined — I have to score XYZ% by passing examinations for ABC subjects. A finite game.
In finite competitions, Certainty dictates the outcomes. I simply correlated this evaluation method to these player performances and just moved ahead.
However, these objective evaluation(s) are just the tip of the iceberg. As we dig deeper, there are many unknown variables at play that influence the outcome.
Recently after the pandemic, India took up the tour down under and we saw some terrific performances from the likes of Rishabh Pant, Hanuma Vihari, Ashwin Ravi, and others. In the ongoing England series, we saw prolific debutants — Ishan Kishan who’s merely 22 years old, and Suryakumar, who’s 30 years old. Lokesh Rahul cruising back to form with his vital knock in a recent encounter… These examples can certainly give some nice objective and technical evaluation criteria. However, what suddenly lifted them?
The game experts often mention the word — form. So what exactly is that? I assume and believe that it has something to do with the mindset.
When Suryakumar said, “I knew my time would come” or when Rahul said, “I have self-belief and confidence”… These are some unknown variables that play a vital role. Because at the highest level, everything is driven by choices and mindset.
There is constantly looming uncertainty, which dictates the outcomes of them being in the team or not. This uncertainty requires consistency and sustainability rather than intensity. This makes it an infinite game, where the players have to nurture the uncertainty to back their choices to be in the squad.
There are some parallels here too!
I have observed that as we move out of school, suddenly the game of life becomes infinite. It is largely driven by our choices and the mindset to back those choices.
1. We don’t have any clearly defined KPIs(Key Performance Indicators) or the agreed-upon objectives.
2. The environment around us is highly dynamic and the rules keep on changing.
3. We have unknown players(read people) in our lives that drive and be the reason for our actions.
As we see, we always play with intensity when we are in school — but suddenly what matters is consistency and sustainability to tackle the infinite game. We have to consistently nurture a mindset of backing our choices to move ahead.
We all are playing a game called life, at the end…
