The Winning Way 2.0Learnings from Sport for Managers

by Anita Bhogle

Under Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy, many young players like Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh flowered. He empowered them and gave them confidence so that they could become match-winners. Irfan Pathan tells of how he was nervous in his first game; the captain threw him the new ball but when he sensed the young man was getting a bit over-awed, he ran up to him to tell him how much he believed in him. Pathan said that if his captain thought he was good enough, he probably was! At the 1992 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, Imran Khan had made a public announcement saying he believed that a young man called Inzamam-ul-Huq was the best player of fast bowling. When they got to the semi-final after a scarcely believable, topsy-turvy ride, Inzamam told his captain that he wasn’t very keen to play since he wasn’t scoring enough runs. Imran told him that he hadn’t brought him all the way from Multan to Auckland to drop him. He said he had brought him along because he believed in him and so would play him. The young man played the innings that turned the semi-final around for Pakistan!