The Key to Consistent Dominance (in sport)

THE ROAD TO CONSISTENT DOMINANCE:

FACTORS AFFECTING WINNING CONSISTENCY

Often dominant teams bear an aura of invincibility, regardless of the
team sport that they play. Everything seems to go right for them at
the right place, CONSISTENTLY. And this in turn creates dominance
generated by a consistent winning pattern. And this is true for many
team sports like field hockey, soccer etc. etc. To single out a
specific team from a specific sport, this description aptly fits the
Australian test cricket team for the considerable time that they have
been on top of the ICC Test Table and is even more so when the
Australians are on home soil.

For a champion Test cricket team functioning like a well-oiled
machine, many factors come into play and they seem to work in
cohesion. One notes that there are very few chinks in the armor of
such a team. All their departments are running at their highest
efficiency most of times (why?). (Ps note that we are using cricket
as a template from which we would like hopefully extend this analysis
to other sports.)

Let us, for the sake of simplicity, split the game of cricket into
three key departments: Batting, bowling, and fielding. And one could
label them as follows:
Batting = x, Bowling = y, and Fielding = z
Then the probability that these departments are performing at their
highest efficiency at any given game could then be denoted as P(x),
P(y), and P(z). For a team to have high rates of efficiency in
all departments is determined by the consistency patterns exhibited by
this team in these departments over a considerable number of games.
Consequently, the values of these probabilities for a champion test
team like Australia, especially when they are playing at home, should
then be very high. (Of course they could never reach the value of 1
or 100% efficiency. Even the greatest of teams cannot do that as they
are after all made of human beings and humans being human will
certainly have their off days.) It is quite conceivable that for any
team at any game the batting or bowling or fielding could be off, or
two out of the three departments could be off and on few occasions all
the departments could come crashing down. So the total probability
that a team is performing in its highest efficiency or when all the
high performances of the individual departments coincide in a
particular game is determined by the product of all these three
probabilities.
P(xyz) = P(x) * P(y) * p(z)

Factors like pitch, weather, crowd support and noise affect the
batting and bowling departments many a time other than their affects
on each other. Though fielding could be relatively be considered
immune to these factors, many a time even the best of the best
fielders could experience an off day for no particular reason,
committing crucial errors that seriously alter the match trajectory.
(Ps note that I have not factored critical umpiring errors here for
the sake of simplicity knowing very well that these errors could some
time make or mar the fortunes of a team in a match). Even though
these three departments could be assumed to be functioning independent
of each other for the sake of simplicity, many a time they do feed
into each other. Good accurate bowling could spur the fielders or
exemplary fielding as in the case of the Australian team could
invigorate the bowlers. (It is indeed a fact that good bowling and
good fielding many times feed off each other.) Regardless, for most
teams in most games at least one department may not be functioning at
the highest efficiency for a given game.

But this is where champion test teams like Australia differ from the
average and that in turn reflects the huge points gap between first
place and second on the ICC Test Table. For the Australian team, all
the three departments perform in high efficiency in relatively more
games in comparison with the other teams and this telescopes
especially when they are at home. Of course, the Australians are not
machines and they do have their days when one or more departments are
not functioning at their highest efficiency. But their individual
values of P(x), P(y), and P(z) are very high, which in turn increases
the value of the total efficiency P(xyz). This means that for a team
like Australia it is very likely in any given game to have all their
departments functioning at their highest concurrent efficiency and
this in turn reflects in their winning consistency.

The other teams do have their games when all their departments are in
full throttle. However their lower values of P(xyz) in turn indicates
that on any given game the chances that one of their departments
splutter are relatively higher and this in turn reflects in their
lower winning consistency. Alternatively, this means that they will
have relatively fewer times when all their departments are humming in
full gear simultaneously. Consequently, P(xyz) becomes a key factor
especially when these other teams are facing Australia especially on
Australian soil. It then becomes imperative for the other teams that
all their departments are playing at their highest efficiency to
counter the Australians at their own game. The other teams could not
afford to just relax at any time and hope for the Australians to have
a serious off-day. Yes there have been matches where Australia has
dropped its level and when lesser teams have taken full advantage, but
that seems to happen relatively much less than the other teams. And
that is why Australia is ending up winning most of its matches.





THE LESSONS FOR OTHER TEAMS:

The moral of the story is that the other teams need to seriously catch
up and work on increasing their values of their respective P(xyz)s.
They have to strive for consistently having more times where all their
departments are concurrently functioning at their highest efficiency.
Now this is for not only games against Australia but also in their
games with other teams. All these point to grassroots coaching,
physical fitness and training, a very strong domestic first class
program, and most importantly an unbound passion, intensity and will
to win supported by teamwork of the highest order. The other teams
need to seriously look at how to introduce training programs that
could translate into higher consistent SIMULTANEOUS top performance in
all aspects of the individual departments of the game. This is the
only road to countering and unseating a team like Australia from its
seemingly unassailable pedestal on the ICC Test Table; the only road
to consistent DOMINANCE.

Now, this principle could also be applied to other sports like in
analyzing top performance.
An example illustrating my analysis and again I use cricket here:

Let's take a team like India playing a team like Australia and here
let's not just take into consideration a one-off game where
statistically anything could happen, but a series of 10 games.

Now the Indian team is known for its batting, which means that India's
P(x) is relatively high. This means that the chances that India's
batting might be in top gear in any given game out of the 10 games is
very high. But we also are very familiar mercurial nature of Indian
bowling and fielding, which in turn means that P(y) and P(z) are low
and this in turn results in a very low P(xyz). This also indicates
that the chances for either the Indian bowling and fielding to
stutter or both of them to stutter together and sometimes having all
the bowling and fielding and even the batting to fail is high because
of the corresponding low value of P(xyz).

In contrast a team like Australia which has a much higher values
of P(y) and P(z) than India, in addition to its already proven
high value of P(x), the chances that all the departments are humming
in top gear over the 10 game series is very high. This in turn means a
much higher P(xyz) compared to India and this also means that it will
beat India in most of the games.

Now the same thing could be translated to field hockey: Just
substitute batting for Offence = x, Bowling for Defence = y and
Fielding for Goalkeeping = z. Let's again assume India playing
Australia over a series of 10 hockey games. Now for a team that is
known for its offence like India, its P(x) will be high which means
its offence will click in most of the 10 games. But India's defence
and goalkeeping has always been suspect and subject to highs and lows
which means that the P(y) and P(z) values are very low and this brings
down India's P(xyz) value.

Again in contrast, the Aussie hockey team shows more consistency than
India in all aspects of the game and this results in a much higher
P(xyz) than India and which in turn means that over a series of 10
games against an opponent like India, the Aussie team will prevail
more often.

This also indicates why some games are low scoring draws, why some
games are 1-sided blowouts and why some of them are goal-gluts

Shiva IYER
041107
www.sivaramhariharan.com
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