The power of ONE!

The Indian Premier League started off some weeks back with a lot of frenzy, hype and hips. What with the media grabbing every single four, six and slap as part of the mainstream national news, the cheer gals doing the rest. In the middle of all this ruckus, the core element was to compete on a cricketing field and compete well.

The teams which were created were fairly distinct in their composition, some banked on the icon players, some on youngsters, and most others on foreign players. Before it all began, Hyderabad was considered as probably the strongest team, Chennai coming a good second. Mumbai, Bangalore were so-so and Rajasthan was even considered an 'also-ran'. Delhi, Kolkata and Punjab where neither great nor hopeless.

All this on paper.

'Start the music' and then comes into fore the reality of the matter. From paper to execution, the kind of distinct progress and failures, which the different teams have made, is monumental. Hyderabad for one, lost lost and only lost all the time. The who's who batsmen of the world couldnt really upswing their fortunes. Swing they did, top edging the ball into the hands of fielders. Rajasthan on the other hand, had players who were hardly known even to their next street families. Unknown names, totally invisible hype, just one good leader and a few good soldiers around.

Thats probably all that it takes to win a match, a competition or a challenge. One leader and a few good men. At school, I had learnt about Dalton's law of partial pressure. It went something like this - "the total pressure exerted by a gaseous mixture is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of each individual component in a gas mixture". Scientifically proven, atleast thats what my science teacher made us believe!

Extrapolating Dalton's law to each and every IPL team, the total power exerted by a team should be equal to the sum of the strengths of the individual players, foreign or indian. Far from being the truth, its totally the contrary. Teams like Hyderabad have lost the plot, inspite of some extraordinary players, who can put pressure on most other international teams in the world, what with this only being an IPL tournament!

Rajasthan on the other hand is the elephant in hiding, coming out with twice the performance per person and doubling their success rate as many times. Blame it on Dalton for cheating millions of children and teachers at schools? - Not completely. What Dalton didnt compute is - not all gases can mix very well, at all times. Should we say its the same with humans as well. Team building cant just be added as sum of the individual performers - there is an invisible ether called leadership, thats the Fevicol which binds all of these potential humans and binds them almost inseparably.

In the coming days, there will be many more twists and turns in this tournament, but one should remember that winning and losing as a team doesnt happen by itself, be it on the cricket ground, in the corporate world, or amongst a band of fishermen weathering a storm in the Atlantic. Matters most as it should be, is the effective understanding of the purpose of channelising our efforts in one cohesive direction; to win a tournament, clinch a deal, or even gravely to save our own lives.

If we do that, we can disprove Dalton and his grandfather's law as well.

Only dont miss the enjoyment of the challenge as your boat plunges into the sea, but to arise with the next wave!

The power of ONE giving way to the wave of hope!