Jordan Finney is a cricket coach and sport psychology degree student. In this article he talks about how showing faith in players leads to more runs and wickets

Good performance and confidence are a bicycle chain.

One good performance brings another, one advancement in planning and technique brings about further positive performance. What many don’t realise is coaches and teammates can raise confidence levels, even when you are at your worst.

On the other hand, cricketers are fragile characters: Social comparison, negative stressors, performance related anxiety and many more corrosive mental factors occur more in sport than other fields. You can divert a player away from these emotions by showing how much you believe in them.

Understand personalities

Every player is different and reacts differently when placed under negative mental load. Your role is to understand their personality; what makes them tick. Then realise what you can do to restore the hunger in the player’s belly.

Here are some examples:

There was an extremely gifted cricketer playing professional cricket and was a good young prospect when they burst onto the scene. However continual injuries to hips, knees and back kept them out for prolonged spells and they began to drop down levels.

It was never a case of ability, it was just staying fit that was the issue.

This player sought the help of a Strength and Conditioning coach external to cricket. The coach struck up the perfect relationship, she left no stone unturned in her research of the player. She showed this through meticulous planning.

The player was initially nervous, but with each session and each improvement the player gained confidence in the coach to the point where he returned to full fitness and the road back to former glory. He will not work with anyone else.

The coach did not use revolutionary training methods. She understood the character she was dealing with. She knew by detailing everything and making gradual interventions, the player would feel a genuine sense of trust in the coach.

The second case is about a talent cricketer who bowled line and length and could build pressure like nobody else in the side.

However, after a few bad performances where batsmen got into him he hit rock bottom. He sat down for crisis talks with the coach about how he did not feel his game was going anywhere and that he was not good enough.

The coach was clear in his point of view; he was only not good enough because that is what his brain was telling him.

The coach knew that with responsibility this player would thrive.

It started at nets: the coach would set a game play scenario and throw the new ball to the player in question, telling him he was the man for the job in this situation. He got the senior bowlers to help the player tactically and give him a sense of importance.

Over time time player went from a timid fearful medium pacer, to a confident, canny operator with a golden arm. Once again the coach was not revolutionary in method, but knew how to show he had faith in that player.

The power of belief

If a player feels like you believe in them, they will very quickly begin to believe in you. They buy into your methods, they agree with your philosophies and they begin to work harder and harder.

You begin to see them grow every minute you spend with them, and you begin to see the hunger in their eyes once again. Over time you will begin to see the player become more and more expressive on the field and more confident during training.

There will be no more timid shy bowlers, or angry batsman throwing their kit around.

Instead you will have a player who is at ease with themselves mentally and understands themselves better than before. Their new found expression exudes from the confidence you have given them. Your backing allows them to know that if their expression fails they will not be axed at the first chance.

Similarly relationships will get better and better as mutually beneficial results are achieved.