At a time when the whole world has been brought into a standstill by the COVID-19 pandemic, Kolkata Knight Riders coach and former New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum has decided to follow Sachin Tendulkar’s footsteps and urged people to do the same to beat the virus.
Tendulkar had earlier asked his fans to draw inspiration from Test cricket on how to fight against the novel coronavirus.
The former Indian batsman had made an appeal to keep their patience, respect the disease and take precautionary measures against it like a batsman does on a tough wicket in Test match, citing “defence comes to the best form of attack”.
“While the world battles the Covid-19 pandemic, this is probably the time for all of us to draw lessons from the grand old format of the game,” Tendulkar was quoted as saying to The Times of India.
“Test cricket rewards you for respecting what you don’t understand. It makes you value the virtue of patience. When you don’t understand the pitch conditions or the bowler, defence comes the best form of attack.
“Patience is what we require now if we have to defend well. In my entire life as a professional cricketer and beyond, I never thought I would see anything like this. Cricket in India and globally has come to a complete standstill,” the Master Blaster added.
Supporting Tendulkar’s theory, McCullum asked everyone to treat each day as a session of a Test match and plan the days in perfectly. He further requested to not lose patience and spend time with their family to successfully overcome the ongoing crisis.
“I agree with Sachin. I think you know we need to just try and break this down, and try and look at it in isolation every time – just small steps like in a session by session (scenario). Deal with every day, make sure your days are well planned, well structured. I think that’s the best thing from what we’ve tried to do in our family as well. Every day, write a bit of a plan of what we’re going to trying to tick off and what we’re going to try and achieve,” McCullum was quoted as saying on the official website of Kolkata Knight Riders.
“Funnily enough we’ve done it around meal times – breakfast together, lunch together and then dinner together. Additionally, just sort of tick off some jobs outside, whether it’s cleaning out your wardrobes or whether it’s cleaning the roof or doing all the gutters or whatever, there’s always something to be done. Just as Sachin said, play it like a Test match and break it down into sessions,” he added.