Opinion What Shane Warne revealed to us about the mind of a champion

Watch that semi-final of the ICC World Cup 1999 in England. Recall the theatre. After the Aussies scored only 213 in 50 overs, the South Africans were cruising at 48 after 12 overs without losing a wicket. Enter Warne. His second ball was a vicious leg-break turning from just outside the leg stump to hit the top of Herschelle Gibbs’ off stump. It was only half as good as Warne’s “ball of the century” to Mike Gatting, but was good enough to bamboozle Gibbs. No warm-up deliveries were needed. Warne just summoned his A-game when he and his team needed it — in a World Cup semi-final.

After bowling Gibbs out, Warne was pumped up. He motivated his teammates — “Come on! come on!” After that high, his adrenalin flow was too high for peak performance. So when he reached his bowling mark to bowl to the new batsman, Warne closed his eyes for several seconds and took deep breaths. The next delivery to Daryll Cullinan was spot on. In his first eight balls, Warne repeated this process thrice. Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentary captured the moment after Warne picked up the second wicket of Gary Kirsten as: “And Warne is one hyped up puppy, just kept screaming ‘yeah!’ and ‘come on!’ during the celebrations.” The reporter made an error, misspelling “during” in the frenzy, but there were no mistakes from the gladiator Warne because of the process he followed. From 48 for no loss, South Africa were 53 for 3 in just eight deliveries from Warne as he brought Australia back in the knockout match without conceding a run.

Contrast this performance to the 1993 Wimbledon final when Jana Novotna led the third set 4-1 and was serving at 40-30, requiring just one point to grab an almost unassailable 5-1 lead against defending champion Steffi Graf. Watch the video of that match and you will see how Novotna’s game spectacularly unraveled when in sight of the outcome — Wimbledon Champion! Novotna hit serves and easy volleys that were yards away from the court.

Comparing and contrasting these two iconic sporting encounters and then processing it through the prism of the Bhagwad Gita offers a brilliant case study on the mental aspect required for a human to be a champion in the sphere of one’s choice. Instead of continuing to focus on the task at hand, that is, play the points with laser-like focus, Novotna became nervous because she let her mind wander onto the outcome of being Wimbledon champion. In contrast, Warne harnessed his mind to evolve processes that enabled him to keep a laser-like focus on the effort, taking deep breaths or periodical pauses to bring back complete mental awareness on the effort. In a profoundly counter-intuitive concept, the Bhagwad Gita teaches us that if one wants to obtain successful outcomes, not worrying about the outcome is the key. Desperation for the successful outcome, in fact, reduces its likelihood.

As imitation is the best form of flattery, the best tribute to Warne is not to declare “Oh! only Warne can do it, we cannot!”. Warne was a mortal human. An outstanding champion, but human. If we just stay in awe and explain why we cannot replicate in our respective spheres the champion mindset that Warne exemplified, we manifest a fixed mindset not conducive to learning. Instead, if we introspect on the process that leads to such perfection in performance from a mortal human, we manifest a growth mindset that can inspire us to learn the process that Warne epitomised. Keep a laser-like focus on the effort; the outcome will then take care of itself. Like it did for Shane Keith Warne. The leader in Warne would rejoice from seeing his champion mindset reflected in a country to which he gave enormous elation.

This column first appeared in the print edition on March 9, 2022 under the title ‘The Champion’s Mind’. The writer is former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India