Invictus Lessons: Inspiring a New Era for Sri Lankan Sports
View(s):At the moment Sri Lankan cricket is in trouble with consistency People have started to watch cricket matches in the past to refresh memories. I watched the cricket match in which Sri Lanka Played against Australia in Sydney in 2006 (nineteen years back) Master Blaster Sanath Jayasooriya scored 114 runs off 96 balls with four sixes and ten fours. Tony Greig considered this a “Magnificent performance from a wonderful cricketer”. We had such an era of cricket in Sri Lanka in those days. Now as Sri Lankans, we do not have any “live” cricket as we need to browse the web and recall the history.
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You could not see any celebration at the moment. Currently, we can see some postmortems or a retrospective analysis (an analysis carried out shortly after the conclusion of an event, especially an unsuccessful one) on the defeat. It is good. But in management, we are talking about “paralysis by analysis” So we have to be concerned about that as well. If you play for the country you should consider playing for the nation as sacred. Sri Lanka is an island where we had many success stories manifested by our belief in religion, history, and the spirit of teamwork. There is a need to respect tradition and those who love and play cricket should start to “read” about legends like Arjuna, Murali, Mahela, Sangakkara, and Jayasooriya and how our past cricketers played cricket with commitment and dedication. Moreover, you should read about the heritage of the country with a sense of feeling. We need to remember that we won the World Cup against giants like Australia, South Africa ,and India in 1996. This is all about leadership and Inspirational motivation. Recently, I watched the movie “Invictus” and I think there are many lessons we can learn with insight.
Invictus is a 2009 American-South African biographical sports drama film directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. Following the fall of apartheid, newly elected President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) faced a South Africa that was racially and economically divided. “Believing he can unite his countrymen through the universal language of sport, Mandela joins forces with Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), captain of the rugby team, to rally South Africans behind a bid for the 1995 World Cup Championship (Diverse Cinemadb,2007)”.The film discusses different contexts but it is a good moral and leadership lesson for all.
In the film, you can see how President Mandela as a leader inspires the captain and the team and also the way the Rugby captain communicates the vision to his teammates. In one instance President Mandela greets all team members with names (remembering all!) and wishes them which was unexpected but intriguing. And more importantly, it can be observed that the entire country rallied around the South African team with all blessings and motivation. Anyway, the role of the captain and team even in visiting remote areas (because for people you are a hero and you should remember you are owed to your country) can be seen as vital.I believe Sri Lanka cricket should be concerned about ADT factors (Attitude, Discipline, and Talents).In past Sri Lankan School cricket, we have nurtured players with all ADT factors. But now we can see only “Super Stars” emerging without any long-term expectations with an idea of playing cricket for the country as sacred.
Conclusion
It is high time for the Administration, Team, Spectators, and general public to think in a new way. This can apply to any sports in Sri Lanka where we have seen different problems without authentic leadership. Some People especially administrators in sport associations do not care about the real value of playing for the country and respect for the talents of the players.We should understand the importance of how collective effort with leadership will position Sri Lanka on the Global map in different games. Also in the education sector, you cannot see many who apply some real case studies into a given sector to teach and inspire students a real sense of understanding of the problem. I think there should be a multi-disciplinarity approach to our teaching and need leadership for that as well.
(The writer is a Professor in Management Studies at the Open University of Sri Lanka You can reach Professor Abeysekera on nalinabeysekera@gmail.com.)
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