When Tendulkar went in to play against a formidable (and dominant) Pakistan pace bowling attack as a 16-year old in 1989, he was touted as the next big thing after Sunil Gavaskar. But he, and many others, had significant doubts about his ability to play at that level after his first innings. He wasn’t sure of whether he belonged there (just imagine that against what he went on to achieve after that). On that tour, he was stuck by a bouncer on his nose, bled on the ground, continued to play and went on to make runs not just there in that match but in 100s of matches wherein he made more than 100 international 100s. He was able to summon that self-belief when he needed it most – he was the same player technically, with or without that belief. But he never would have been the same player overall, without that.
Kohli was touted as the next big thing after leading the Indian Under-19 Cricket Team to a World Cup win. But his first IPL season was a series of failures – some 165 runs from 13 matches. The chubby, seemingly arrogant lad brought into play all the self-belief to become one of the best ever over the next decade.
Shubhman Gill was the player of the tournament 12 months ago in the Under-19 World Cup tournament in the same country that he made his international debut in a few days ago. And he isn’t someone who had faced any failures till then. Infact he mentioned that he is teased by his sister if he doesn’t make a 100 for a few matches – “tere se toh sau bhi nahi ban raha”. From that high to 2 failures on the international stage within 3 days won’t be easy. But it won’t need a change in his technique for him to become the next big thing. It will be more his mind than his bat that will decide how this story builds.
That is true not just on the cricket field, but in life – be it at your CAT coaching or at the final interviews for the IIMs. How you move past your struggle, how you believe in yourself, and how you script your story – and whether you change the level – in your mind!
About the author: Deekshant has sleep-walked through several 100 and 99.9 %iles in practically every section of the CAT. That he is a cricket fan and he writes okay is evident from most of his posts. 1000s of our students swear that he can motivate almost anyone to double his/her percentile through very simple yet powerful inputs. And that’s why every MBAGuru student has direct access to him via mail and Telegram. Oddly, he somehow also finds the time to write songs professionally. And yes … almost missed this … he is an alumnus of IIT Delhi & IIM Cal 
[…] years ago, in early Feb 2019, I wrote this article (on Tendulkar, Kohli and Gill) and I […]