Sport Stars Under Pressure!

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My hands are becoming sticky and sweaty just thinking about it! This weekend the pressure is well and truly on for some of England’s sporting stars.

On Saturday night England’s cricket team take on Allen Stanford’s West Indian Superstars team in Antigua with $1million at stake for EACH winning player. The losers get nothing. The four reserves who don’t play will earn $250,000 EACH if their team win. These are silly figures for a game that will last no longer than three hours. Hypothetically speaking you could get bowled for nought, drop a few catches, bowl an expensive over and still be paid a million dollars for your efforts.

I will avoid having a rant about the negative socioeconomic implications of such an event. For sports fans, this game is a fantastic experiment in performing under pressure, or choking, as Texan Stanford would say.
Imagine the scene. The Superstars need 10runs to win off the final over with one wicket remaining. Kevin Pietersen walks up to you and hands you the ball. You have to bowl that final over. Do you try and take the wicket to be a hero and earn your mates and coaches a combined $13million? Do you try and ball a nice safe over to restrict their runs? Or do you freeze, and ball a no-ball, then a boundary, then lose it all.

$13million to be decided by one ball, which potentially could happen, is more most could handle. Pietersen, England’s captain, has stated he can’t wait for this week to end, and I can understand. Some of his players have been suffering from stomach bugs. Stanford himself has been causing a furore in the media. Cricket has sold its soul. Hopefully the players can perform with skill and dignity under pressure to make a great spectacle.

Although part of me wants to see it come down to one last high dropping catch, with $13million resting in the fate of one man’s sticky, sweaty hands, I suspect those too are the wishes of the sadistic Stanford. I therefore hope one team seals victory in a boring, one-sided clash.

On Sunday, once the heart rate has settled from the drama of the cricket, we travel south from the Caribbean to Brazil, where the final Grand Prix of the Formula One season takes place. Lewis Hamilton denied world championship glory in his debut season at the same stage last year, enters the race with a seven point lead. He just needs to finish fifth to secure the title.

However if Saturday night is three hours of intense drama, Sunday afternoon could be two hours of excruciating tension. Lewis Hamilton is renowned as a perfectionist, but this race could call for pragmatism. If Hamilton of McLaren and Massa of Ferrari are racing each other towards the end, anything could happen.

They may not be the purist sporting events the world has ever known, but for any sports psychologists reading this, I assure you that there will never be two greater examples of needing to perform under pressure sandwiched into the same weekend.

My predictions? The Superstars win the cricket by a ‘comfortable’ fifteen runs. Hamilton finishes on the podium for F1 championship glory. Everybody needs a drink by the end of it.