Yesterday I was privileged to have a ticket to go and watch the Twenty20 cricket world cup games at Lords.
Lords is some magnificent place. Absolutely beautiful venue, steeped in history and with fabulous facilities and the most beautiful, pristine cricket playing surface you have seen.
England were playing India, the current world cup holders… But as a result of losing to England in a real nerve-jangling game, India can no longer make it to the semi-finals.
Let me explain why I am writing about this today…
The stadium was packed, I mean absolutely ram-packed. The Indian national game ensured that the stadium had far more Indian fans than English fans for the game yesterday and the atmosphere was electric!
When the England players walked on to the pitch to warm up and prepare for the start for the game, they were met by a huge amount of hostile booing from the Indian supporters. An attempt to intimidate, perhaps?
Yet in the post match interviews, England captain Paul Collingwood says that the boos spurred him and his team onward and upwards and made them even more determined and focused on winning.
I have seen much intimidation tactics in a variety of different ways in life… People that simply aim to induce fear and scare others into the place they want them do not prevail, in fact the opposite is very often true.
No big blog discussion today, just a thought or two. Do you know someone who uses fear-inducing tactics, intimidation and scaremongering to attempt and get their own way?
