Warning: Undefined array key "inject_bottom_color" in /home/0excusesfitness/public_html/wp-content/plugins/newsletter-leads/plugin.php on line 143

Warning: Undefined array key "inject_bottom_color" in /home/0excusesfitness/public_html/wp-content/plugins/newsletter-leads/plugin.php on line 159

Warning: Undefined array key "" in /home/0excusesfitness/public_html/wp-content/plugins/newsletter-leads/plugin.php on line 159

Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /home/0excusesfitness/public_html/wp-content/plugins/newsletter-leads/plugin.php on line 160

Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /home/0excusesfitness/public_html/wp-content/plugins/newsletter-leads/plugin.php on line 161

This email will be for you cricket lovers, enthusiasts, or simply those who know a little something what eventually turned into baseball, hehe.

If you don’t – read it anyway!

But anyway, I might be wrong on some dates. But here goes!

1993, Australia VS South Africa in Paarl I believe it was.

The South Africans had just posted what was a MAMMOTH, Garganturan score by any standards – in that era (that score is commonplace now, but back then it was about a 100 more than any team would want to chase and be confident of winning).

The Aussies lost three quick wickets.

Master batter Ricky Ponting and Darren “beer drinking” (back in the day, they had FUN!) Lehmann came to the crease.

They didnt do much.

Stealthily, they ticked away.

1’s.

2’s.

The occasional 3 and VERY occasional 4 runs an over . . . (6 balls).

Cricket has 50 over a side, and each “wide” or no balls is an extra delivery, so the Aussies had about 331 to get from 300 balls.

NO-ONE gave them a fighting chance, especially after those wickets were gone.

Yet, a 180 or so run partnership later – Ricky and Darren both got out on 90 or so, and the Aussies had only 90 odd or so to chase, which they did!

That massive period of ticking away quietly worked.

Deja Vu again in Centurion, and this one I DO remember clearly.

The Aussies were 99/4, chasing another MASSIVE target. Day night game again!

(It’s cricket – day night makes it more challenging – it did back then!)

And again.

Steve “Tugga” Waugh and Michael Bevan, hardly either the flashiest or classiest batters out there were starting their innings.

It was Bevan’s day. Or night.

When after another mammoth partnership Bevan finally departed, he had 100 plus to his name, and scarcely a boundary to his name.

Steve Waugh was 90 something out, and he ran like a manic too between the wickets.

In that heat and humidity, they were dripping.

No Mama’s Boys out there, Ill tell you that! No “Gym Shym” either!

The Aussies won! Against all odds.

Perhaps the most stunning of all though was the recent (relatively) 434 run chase by the South Africans against the Aussies, a target so massive that even God in heaven would probably have poured one out and said “we lost this one boys – gun up for the next one!”

Mid way through the innings, the South Africans were shell shocked.

From Ricky Ponting’s blazing 160 plus to Simon Katich’s opening salvo to Gilchrist inspired mayhem and Manic Mike hussy scoring 80 plus … the game was done and dusted.

So we all thought.

Jacques Kallis showed up in the Proteas dressing room.

Jokingly he claimed, we can do this boys!

They all laughed. Little did they know that Gibbs and Smith were about to create history with the most brazen assualt ever on the massive target – and truth be told – they had no option BUT to either win – or perish big time!

They won!

And sometimes, like the recent massive 380 run chase in the India England match in India – Eoin Morgan “the black Mamba” almost got them over the line. Another spectacular innings – 20 more runs, and the Poms would be over the line in the  #2 successful highest chase of all time!

Lesson learnt?

More often than not, it’s the slow grind that you don’t see – or notice that sets you up for the final flourish.

Sometimes in an emergency you have NO choice but to go all guns blazing, and you WIN.

I’ve been there. So have you!

But more often than not, the “slow knife” i.e. persistence is what wins the game or cuts the deepest (thats a Ben Settle saying, I believe? Not sure).

And that, my friend is what will do it for you fitness wise.

It could be 0 Excuses Fitness, Pushup Central, Animal Kingdom Workouts, or any of my other great courses.

They all demand persistence, if you wanna go after the big stakes.

As Napoleon Hill said in Think and Grow Rich. 

Broadway will give any struggling “actor” a coffee and a sandwich but it demands PERSISTENCE for those that go after the BIG STAKES!

Which one are you, my friend?

Only YOU can decide . . .

Best,

Rahul Mookerjee

Ps – Write back – let me know!