Friends in competition

Heres wishing all of you a very happy and healthy new year, At the beginning of the New Year I have an incident which to me defines morality and good people. This incident that I want to publish, took place a few days back where two of cricketers who I coach and had worked with quite closely for the past few months, were involved. A league where a very simple game usually played to warm up before an actual competitive match was played between players of different backgrounds and walks of life. The league itself was an attempt at having fun in the extreme or so quite a few thought (their bad). I say this because if you compare outlooks towards sport say between a businessman, a Vice president and professional sportsman they bring strategy, stress buster and fierce competition to the table respectively, I have mentioned earlier in the piece there were two of these wonderful professional cricketers, extremely fit and motivated to do well for their team and bring in the glory at all costs. Getting back ,to the game it was getting really competitive, flaring nostrils and exchanges not very pleasant lead to a massive face off and ended in a horrific accident where one player had his shoulder dislocated and the other having being branded guilty of the crime, being red carded off the field. He got massive abuse from the crowd of course he gave some of it back with some of the adrenalin still going strong, had a barrage from yours truly which kind of settled him down. The injured party meanwhile, had to be helped off the field and to be taken to hospital, where his shoulder returned to its rightful place, his season however was reduced to a no show and his preparation had all gone to waste. All this needless to say left a bad taste in the mouth. That very night the red card holder and the sore shoulder met up, this time at the hospital and what contrived there is unknown but a picture of two sportsmen together one arm in a sling and another on the others shoulder appeared on one of the application that these youngsters swear by and use , I for once too agreed with its utility. A picture that would never let you know what had transpired a couple of hours ago, two beaming smiles and two friends just happy clicking a picture together. I have yet to see something that to begin with was so extremely competitive in nature and to have it end in a fashion so completely at the other end of the emotional spectrum. These two are the best of friends as we read and hopefully they stay on well at least till our wounded soldier can gear up to battle again with his new friend and then that would be really interesting. As I continue to learn, how competition can breed a fierce, mad rage, it can also at the end of it all bring about a very complex but extremely accurate definition of what we call a sportsman........’Just Thoughts’.