Ask the readers: What would increase your mental toughness?
How often do we hear of top players with ability but without the mental strength to fight through?
To me, this demonstrates how cricket, at every level, can be a game of confidence. Technique, talent and fitness are important, but without the ability to ride success and shrug of failure it's all worthless.
How mentally tough are you and what would you like to learn about to improve it?
In my own experience as a club player, I used to have very low confidence on the cricket pitch. I pride myself on my technique and performance as both a batsman and a wicketkeeper. I wanted to play the perfect game every time I pulled on the whites. If I made a mistake (even a small one like missing a ball down the leg side) I would consider than game 'tainted' by my imperfection.
As you can imagine, this only made me play worse. It wasn't a technical issue, it was a mental one.
Then I learned two simple techniques to put mistakes out of my head and start focusing on my success. The improvements in self-confidence also lead to a dramatic jump in my consistency, particularly in my wicketkeeping.
I ended up as player of the year for my club 2nd XI.
Now I want to know your experiences. Have ever had similar issues on the field? Are you experiencing them now? What types of problems are stopping you from reaching your potential as a cricketer?
If you reveal your problems, I promise I'll do my best to help you solve them. I have been through it myself, have helped others in similar situations at club level and covered sport psychology in my degree course so I should be able to at least point you in the right direction.
How to leave your mental toughness story
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I'm fascinated to hear the experiences club players in their mental game, whichever way you prefer to contact us.
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I have had some emails, noone want to post a comment? You can remain anonymous!
hi david! i also experiance the same problem, whenever i go for batting during a match i feel so low on confidance,so nerves.i always get the fear of getting out,as a result i get so defensive and don't play my shots and due to pressure get out..
i hpe u'll be able to help me to get out of this problem and make me mentally strong.
It's a very common issue. I feel the thing you need to work out is what are you afraid of? Getting out? getting hurt? being a success?
This might be a little off topic, but same genre...
My Question is -
How do you prepare yourself Mentally for a Trial, eg- State trail or District trail.?
Any tips?
That is a good one Vishi. The key is to remember why you got the trial in the first place: because you are a good player. The reason you got there is because your mental state has been good. That means you don't change anything. As much as possible treat the game like any other and do exactly what you have been doing to prepare.
The problem with this approach is when that feeling of "wow this really counts for extra" creeps into your mind. If this happens, take yourself to one side and make a concious effort to clear your mind of the doubt. Bob Woolmer suggests imagining a table with things on it to represent your negative thoughts. In your mind sweep everything off the table so it is clean then think something general and positive instead.
It takes practice to recognise then clear the thought but if you do it every time the negatives can't creep in.
Yes,
You are right and that little trick should also work that you mentioned!
I had my trail for the district team about 4 days ago now and i also did something like that too,
Before the night of the trail i couldnt go to sleep for aobut 3 hours when i was in bed, so i took myself and imagined the positives and talked to my self eg- "I can do this", "I am a good player and i have to believe in my ability" etc ..
And it really helped, and my trail went great and am just waiting the results now!
Great idea, I'll see what I can do.
Hey David,
I hardly get bat, both in u16s and in seniors, but I'm starting to make my mark - I moved up to 7 for the last game of the season in seniors.
I know I have some ability with the bat, I'm a great player of the cover drive, not much else, but hey, at least it's something.
I lack the ability to structure an innings - at the the start I guess I'm afraid to go out, and once I get a start, I lack the belief to go with it and make a 50, simply because I've never done it before and never been thought of as a batsman (well I was a season ago, but the new juniors coach doesn't like me
).
Any advice? Thanks mate.
It might seem a bit wishy washy and new age, but you can trick yourself into success just by imagining what that success would be like. That is done by a combination of proper goal setting, visualisation and 'outcome visioning'. It takes a bit of work but sounds more complicated than it is. The good thing is, once you have done it once you can keep thinking back to that instead.
hi david,im a left arm finger spinner n my problem is that once i am hit for a boundary or a six i get tensed and give one more in the same and in another case if have bowled 5 good balls i start to think that i will give a four and that happens.wat do i do?
Vamsee, I think with spin you have to develop a sense for if you are getting hit from bad bowling or a batsman who is going after you even though you are bowling OK. If you are bowling poorly the secret is to clear your mind of negative thoughts and focus on getting the ball back on the right line and length. You may need to experiment wiith the amount of turn, length and line you are owling to each player to work him out.
You may also need to set some goals in practice to imporve your consistency.
If you are bowling OK but the batsman is hitting you then you are on top because he is having to make runs by sweeping or running down the wicket. Again the key is to put the thought of bowling a bad ball out of your mind and keep doing what you are doing. He will make a mistake sooner or later.
You can practice this "refocusing" when you are not even playing by trying to catch yourself having negative thoughts during your normal day. If you can catch these thoughts you can stop them before they become doubts and make you tense up.
I've been in mental trouble this season. For the last few years I've always been able to make a contribution with the bat and although I'm in my late 40s I've always felt I've been improving as a batter. This year though I've not been able to practise as much as I'd like (how many coaches suffer from this) so now when I go out to bat all I can see are hundreds of giant men wearing white who seem to act as ball magnets! I scratch around for a few deliveries waiting for the bad ball to arrive, but when it does I've been done over by it - edging a full bunger to the keeper or smacking a rank long hop straight down mid-on's thoat.
I've started retreating down the batting order so rather than being my old number 3 I've been batting at 8 or 9 (using a dodgy back as an excuse). It's not good. I've had a friendly coach give me a few throw downs and he's helped point out a few technical points that have appeared (body language at the crease being one) but I still feel fragile!
We're playing the table topping team this weekend and I need to make a better contribution other than taking out the drinks!
Cheers
Richard
A lot of batsmen experience this. The problem is that in cricket you only get one chance so you tense up and play badly.
One trick that really helps is the ability to zone in on the ball and forget all the other stuff - the fear of getting out, the tension that goes with it. That starts with learning how to relax at the crease. You can work on that away from the pitch too. Every day make 10 minutes to go somewhere quiet, sit down, clear your mind and focus on how it feels just to be sitting there. Focus on the feel of the chair agaist your back, how your socks feel on your feet and the position of each part of your body in relation to each other. Then work your way through your muscles, especially the shoulders, letting them relax and letting all the tension out.
The more you do this, the more you find you can feel control the tension in your body all the time, especially in the middle.
You can combine this trick with some imagery techniques (both positive and negative) to replace the thoughts of failure with the idea of success. After all, you have done it before, what is stopping you from doing it again apart from yourself?
Cheers David - will give your suggestion a go.
Thanks David, I'll give it a go.
What should I be visualising? The whole innings or just different parts of it?
Cheers mate.
Ideally you would visualise the whole thing but that would take too long. A compromise is to visualise each 'phase' of the innings: the first few balls, the acceleration through the gears and the big finish (if needed).
Well first the good news - I didn't have to take the drinks out and we beat the top of the table team! Now the bad - I got out cheaply to a straight full toss for the third time this season. I seem to instinctively want try to whip them away to leg, I missed the ball it hit my legs and went on to the stumps. Need to stop playing that shot. The question is how!
its right
its all about your positive thinking.
if you want to perform in any level you just think ur good points and see how is your body responce.
we all know we are living in this world with the combination of two things, one is ur body its ur bones, muscles,etc and our sole, so we know if we have strong muscles and body but we dont have mantly weak we cant get any good resulte from our body.
so always think positive and do the thing you have full control in it and never think nagitive you cane see the change in you life and performance.
this is all mental side. positive thinking is best to prefrom well
I could not agree more. The tricky part is working out how to encorage the positive while blocking out the negative. Something we teach you in our mental training for cricket course on PitchVision Academy.
for that you must learn "LET go" excersice that thing helps you to go away from negative emotions. ones you go away from that then you need to bring the positive thinking. with that you become in the peak promfromces zone. that is the zone you perfrom very well.
OKAY, CONFIDENCE COMES FROM COMPETENCE WHICH COMES FROM CONTROL WHICH COMES FROM CONCENTRATION WHICH COMES FROM COMMITTMENT WHICH MEANS YOU HAVE TO TRAIN !
THERE ARE TIMES WHEN YOU CAN BLUFF STUFF,BUT WHEN IT'S CRUNCH TIME THE ONLY THING THAT WILL GIVE YOU THE CONFIDENCE TO KNOW YOU CAN DEAL WITH IT IS THE WONDERFUL FEELING OF KNOWING YOU'VE PUT IN THE PRACTISE AND ARE COMPETENT TO CARRY OUT THE TASK.
THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PRACTISE. THAT AMERICAN SWIMMER SAID HE'D PUT ALOT OF DEPOSITS INTO THE BANK AND THEN MAKES A WITHDRAWAL IN COMPITION,THEN GOES AWAY AND STARTS AGAIN,HE'S TALKING ABOUT TRAINING.
i captaed my cricket team and while i was batting the same thoughts popped into my head all the time.
lead from the top, like a captian should.
sure, u could see that as good, taking responsibility in my actions to bring out a positive result for the team...or...it could mean masses of pressure for me. all the pressure that affected me didnt exist, but i created it and it affected me. my mind was focusing too much on the captaincy than my actual batting.
so best advice, iv learned never put pressure on yourself.(some of the team pull more than their weight so dont worry about under acheiving)
find rituals which relax you (coordinated breathing, loosening parts of your body all relax your body)
find rituals which keep you in the moment (marking yourself out of 10 after every stroke/leave.)
dont think about the game between overs.(think aboiut wats for tea, wat films are out, wat you are doing later, th weather, anything that can conserve your concentration)
Firstly you need the passion and drive. There is no way unless a lad is passionate and is well driven can mental toughness be a factor. In my opinion it is wrong to tell players keep happy when you fail. I'm not saying you should beat yourself down but whether one does well or not, one should always look to improve. Every training session, every game and every time you go out in the park see if you can better yourself physically, mentally and technically about 0.5% at least.
I have spoken to a lot of international cricketers about the mental side of the game and they keep it fairly simple. They have good pre-game routinues as well as good pre-ball routine. When you are not looking at the outcome you will stay in the present. For some 40 could be a good score but for a seriously good batsman 40 may mean a failure. There is no way runs should just be the criteria.
A bowler should know how to control, line and length. He should know when to go all out attack and when to relax. Similarly a batsman should also know when to dominate and when to take it easy. There is no way a single theory whether mental, physical or technical can suit all the players. Foremost the players should understand themselves very well to be able to handle the success and failures. Every batsman fails enough number of times but does every batsman learn from each inning? The tendency usually is to fell great when things fall in place and sulk when it doesn't.
A passionate player ideally doesn't give up. The passion drives him not the success rate. A good quality player will also rise through the ranks. An average player with passion swinging up and down is someone that can lose the plot in the face of repeated failures.
In fact I know of a lad that takes every game like a selectorial rehersal for future and bats like there is no tomorrow every time. No wonder he's doing great and very focussed. People that can't think outside the box struggle through failures and successes.
Hey David....i am a left hand batsman......i used to open in my school matches and perform in almost every match.....and when it comes to district or state level they always play me at 5 or 6.....i like to play attacking cricket and i think i play good if i open....but my coaches here think i shoud play in middle order....and every time i play in middle order i just can't perform....its just because our teams top order always fail to give us a good start...and all the pressure is shifted on middle order...and that make me nervous and just couldn't play my shots.....i just wanted take to ask u that what shud i do?