It might just pay to be stubborn in sport. Tunnel vision is a gift many sportsmen have used to sparkle. One such performance came from Bastian Schweinsteiger, the German midfielder who picked himself up on the six occasions on which the Argentine defenders brought him down in the World Cup soccer final and went on to weave one of those rare sagas in sporting courage that will stay etched in the mind for long.
Not even a stray elbow or arm in his face that was nearly brutal enough to bring on a concussion, besides opening up a bleeding gash, was sufficient to keep the good man down. He just kept coming as if he were a punch drunk boxer willing to take any amount of punishment and still stay in the ring and look for victory. This kind of single minded devotion can come only to very few even though each sportsman claims to have it.
Anil Kumble did it once in the Caribbean, bowling on for hours with his skull in a bandage. These are never-say-die men who just will not let an injury come in the way of finishing a sporting assignment. Such raw courage is usually seen in firemen who go into battle against the raging flames and the smoke, disregarding danger to self. In fact, firemen are generally far more heroic than sportsman of any discipline and it is a different matter that society does not quite acknowledge that.
Mohinder Amaranth did it famously in the Caribbean about three decades ago where he was literally a glutton for punishment at the hands of the quicks. Tales abound of how he would wash the bloodstains off his favourite shirt so he could use it again while batting the next day. And he was the batsman who had, just four years earlier, been dropped from the team since he could not handle the bouncer and would nearly fall on his stumps each time the opposition went for the jugular.
Unlike football, cricket is a non-contact sport but it also calls for huge amount of grit and guts when it comes to taking on fast bowling on pitches outside India and Sri Lanka. Batting becomes a different kind of proposition when you have to meet the ball when it is chest-high rather than just knee-high as is the case with most home pitches that draw the teeth of the fast bowlers.
Plenty of tunnel vision has also been on display this summer in England where numbers 10 and 11 have become even more famous for grit at the batting crease than their more distinguished colleagues who bat up the order. In fact, all three Tests of the summer thus far have seen the men of the last wicket stand revel in the spotlight for hours together, the first time out as Sri Lanka held on to a draw thanks to a correct decision from a TV review replay and then England failed narrowly with James Anderson falling to the penultimate ball.
The Notting Hill Test surpassed the other two in terms of last wicket heroics with India setting the pace through Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami and England doing even better as Joe stood rooted at the crease even as Anderson exceeded himself in helping string together a world record stand.
This is not to forget how Murali Vijay also used stubbornness to good effect, sacrificing style and flair for effectiveness as he played like the traditional Test opener, eschewing all risk and displaying the patience of Job in waiting for the right opportunity to make his first overseas Test century. The next time someone curses you for being stubborn as a mule, tell them how helpful that quality can be in sport.
