Better days ahead

Dr Rudi Webster

Very soon the leaders of Cricket West Indies (CWI) will sit down to design new strategies and programmes to chart the way forward for West Indies cricket. Most of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle for cricket development and performance are already in their hands, but without a clear and detailed picture on the box they might have difficulty putting those pieces together successfully. Ability and motivation are two of the most important pieces. 

Ability is an indicator of potential and only shows what a player is capable of doing. It does not guarantee that he will do it nor does it assure good performance. Motivation on the other hand reveals why a player might do something and how likely he is to do it.

Richie Benaud, a former captain of Australia once told me: “There is never any shortage of talented sportsmen either in this age or in past eras, some have even been potentially great, but have never quite managed to take that last little step. It is in fact a giant stride! The successful sportsman is the one who knows how best to handle the pressures of the day and the situation about to land upon him, the one who is able to gauge when the pressures are being applied to him, and when they must be applied to others.”