Lessons learned from reading cricket biographies and autobiographies

[Zeeshan]

Study the masters. They said, if you want to become one. So I have been doing a lot of reading lately. And I have taken tons of notes. At one go, it would be impossible to post them all so I will just post them byte sized.

1. Reading Ambrose's autobiography:
-passion and talent is overrated, he never really wanted to be a cricket player but NBA player, surprisingly his mom and later the whole 'village' pushed him to it.
It is really about hard work and determination (and luck). Chanderpaul, with no sniff of talent with capital T is a prime example.

-listen to your heart. When I penned my masterpiece of Mohammad XI, I got some slack from some nobody that I am loading my team with six bowlers. I felt stupid at that time, and beat myself up for being so "oggo" (not the waffles). Then reading Ambrose biography, I found a gem that at one stage, they were experimenting with ..yup...six frontline bowlers. Listen to your heart, sometimes the most creative and original thoughts will be there which no one will thought of.

2. Reading Akhtar's biography:

- champions come in all shapes and sizes. Some are humble, some not so. Akhtar was a big dreamer. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
-even the best of us get mocked, booed off and chewed off stage, Akhtar used to go around boasting that someday he will play with the big dogs and his name will be 'there' and his friends taunted him that he might as well "pump tires with that hot air in his head".

[Zeeshan]

3. Reading Nasser Hussain's biography:

- Visualization matters. I (and the coaches) cannot stress how important this aspect of the game is. Just two seconds into his biography he writes:



-Even the best gets nervous. Contrary the "talent" and "superman" myth, these people are best because they learned to cope with it.

[Zeeshan]

4. There is "no secret to success". If anything, that is hard work. Whiners (unfortunately many of our team mates) like to complaint "oh oh we cannot bowl Aussies out on a fast and bouncy track" etcetera. Unfortunately these "realistic" and "pragmatic" "views" are nothing but loser talks. One can find zillion excuses to fail. I give you Mr 400 himself:



5. Contrary to popular belief (and reading Tim Grover's account of Jordan, Kobe and other 'cleaners', winners and champions don't just walk in and achieve success. There are tons of hard work to clock in....till you fall on your puke, piss your pants and do bats-t load of work.

Ambrose writes even he had "baptism by fire" in his debut matches. And even HIM had to fight uphill battle of politics and favoritism. Yes, he had to PROVE himself that he belongs.

[Zeeshan]

6. Trust your intuition (Grover's opening chapter is "Don't think" and that man actually knows what he is talking about and do trust your natural rhythm, or raw action. Here's Wasim (as well Lillee on bowling the hell out when your body cannot take it anymore. You see the recurring pattern? Hint: It's rhymes with a cuss word....Ah well, it is "hard work").

[Zeeshan]

Tough crowd.

[Zeeshan]

7. You need to have "Attitude problem" or as Grover calls it "Dark side". You also need to embrace your dark side. Even Mother Teresa wasn't a saint. You cannot possibly go out there to make friends and expect everyone to like you. You should be ghaura, and stubborn and sometimes not even have "getting banned" or "offending others" at the back of your mind. "Nice guys do finish last." But heck even Ambrose saluted Sachin for being so humble.

Speaking of Ambrose:

[Zeeshan]

8. Reading Lardwood, it is pretty apparent that "physique is overrated". You gotta have the guts, fire and desire to bowl fast. Infact one of the driving phrase that I enjoy is "Never judge a SEAL by his build". Or the rather cliche "It's not the size of the dog...."

Larwood:





9. Indeed when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. "Luck" "talent" and "opportunity" will only get you so far. Steve Waugh on Ambrose:

[Tigers_eye]

Your BEST thread ever.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by Zeeshan
Tough crowd.

Timing. shob ghum east coast'a.

[iDumb]

Originally Posted by Tigers_eye
Your BEST thread ever.

what? in the age of twitter where people read characters not sentences this guys is highlighting books... no body is gonna read that...

thumbs down...

Make a thread on tweets it will be super hit....

[Zeeshan]

ai....tumi eto 'min' keno?

[Zeeshan]

Thanks TE bhai.

[rezwansyed]

Wow... Excellent thread. When the beauty of diction meets cricket, it is something that all true cricket-lovers/cricketers long for.

[RazabQ]

Imran's All Round View Does not rate a mention?

[Zeeshan]

Originally Posted by RazabQ
Imran's All Round View Does not rate a mention?

I actually wanted to buy Wasim. Don't have it in Kindle. So ended up buying like 9 books. Will look into it.

I was shopping from here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...utobiographies

[RazabQ]

All Round View is an outstanding read. And not even ghost written!

[Zeeshan]

^^^Thanks.

Nadim, torrent pls?