Imagine how you would feel if you were stumbling sightless through a jungle after a snake-bite or if you watched a fellow climber die on your way to the summit or if you were stalked by a polar bear while circumnavigating the Arctic Circle in the ever-present darkness of winter. Terrified? Traumatised? At the very least trepidation for whether you should go on, surely? Not Mike Horn.
He completed his trip down the Amazon river despite temporary blindness. When he lost his friend, he found the top of the mountain. And he shrugged off the polar bear until it found something else to eat.
“It’s very important for them to understand that when I play out in nature, as an example, I don’t really lose a match and there’s no second match. I lose a life. So there’s a different commitment to what I do,” Horn told South African broadcaster SABC news. “That weakness that we have as humans, we cannot show that weakness.”
So far, South Africa have understood. Those words were repeated almost verbatim by AB de Villiers after their quarter-final win over Sri Lanka, when they exerted the kind of authority Horn had demanded.
That philosophy is fundamentally different to the South African approach, especially in knockout matches. They have seen their role as pressure absorbers, not pressure transmitters, and it has been their undoing.
A change in mindset was required and that is what Horn has been working on since he first met the side in 2011. Then, they were embarking on a three-Test tour to England. Victory would give them the Test mace. “When the Proteas came to Switzerland, Gary Kirsten gave me a job to do. He said, ‘Mike, you’ve got to make a team out of these individuals.’ I said, ‘I know the perfect exercise – let’s take them up the mountain.’
“We roped them up together and we climbed a peak that’s not often climbed, and as the players went higher and higher and they got more tired and more engaged and it became colder and more difficult, the players slowly but surely got closer to each other,” Horn said. “They started helping the weak ones. They started looking after each other, and that creates a great team environment.”
Not only did South Africa win the mace, they have have kept it with them, barring a few months last year, despite major differences in personnel – a new coach, a new captain and a new senior core. That smooth transition was possible because of the strength of the collective, which Horn has impressed on all the teams he has worked with.
From India, to the Kolkata Knights Riders and the German Football team, Horn has taught sportsmen that what you go through alone is never as important as what you have committed to doing for others.
“Once committed, you have to finish the job at any cost. That was your word, your commitment. It was a message that the players took to heart,” Joy Bhattacharya, team director of Knight Riders, wrote on Quartz India. “The beauty of Mike’s tales was that they transcended cultures and educational backgrounds.”
Morne Morkel, who plays for Knight Riders and grew particularly close to Horn, is a perfect example of how the message has got through. AB de Villiers has called him one of the “captains of the bowling,” who “talks with good confidence.”
Morkel bowls that way too. His job is not to take his foot off the gas after the initial waves of attack. In so doing, he finished as South Africa’s leading wicket-taker in 2014 and is their leading paceman at the World Cup. Morkel is bowling quicker and more aggressively than he ever has. His use of the bouncer has also been exceptional. “He walks the talk,” de Villiers said. “And he believes he can actually play a major role in teams winning Cups.”
That is the exact feeling Horn is trying to foster in every member of South Africa’s squad. “The World Cup cannot be won with individuals. It can be won with one team. And for me, being back with the Proteas now, I can see that team. That team has been created and they’re here for one reason, and that is to win the World Cup.”
So does that mean Horn thinks South Africa will leave with the trophy they came for? “I don’t think the question is can they. I think it’s when will they win a World Cup. Cricket is a game, and in games we do have luck and we don’t have luck. I think this team has the individuals and they’ve done the hard yards. They’ve prepared themselves very well and now it’s going to be the roll of the dice. If there is ever a team that can win the World Cup it’s this team that we have now. I’ll back them all the way.”
