On Tuesday, the Windies completed one of the most unlikely and unpredicted victories in Test match history when they knocked off 322 in 91.5 overs for the loss of only 5 wickets. My ex-Hampshire skipper and now commentating megastar, Mark Nicolas wrote “Of all the unlikely things in West Indies cricketing history, this MUST rank up there”.

In isolation, the 4th innings batting performance was historic. Only two teams had chased more runs on the final day to win a match in England. In Shai Hope, they can now boast the only batsman in 500 First Class matches to score a hundred in both Headingley innings. Kraigg Braithwaite narrowly missed out on the same feat of batting skill.

But when you look at it in a broader context the performance was all the more remarkable.

Only last week, the same squad had lost 19 wickets in a single day to lose a Test Match within 3 days without winning a single session. In truth, at Headingley, the West Indies won 11 of the 15 sessions.

So how do you facilitate such incredible reversals in performance?

How do you move from despair to elation in the space of a week and without a fixture in between Tests to improve collective confidence?

Here are some meeting based options and tactics that I have seen or used over the years.

Meeting #1: The honesty approach.

My personal favourite: one that I saw best facilitated by England Coach, Andy Flower back in 2009. England had been humiliated in Jamaica being bowling out for 52 in his first Test as interim coach.

There were some splits in the camp as a result of Kevin Pietersen’s sacking as Captain and Peter Moores leaving as Head Coach following the India tour at the back end of 2008. This had spilled over into the on field performances and something had to change quickly.

Flower set the meeting up brilliantly. He stated that we were all able to say exactly what we want to each other, there would be no recriminations for any clean feedback given to the management, the players or each other. We would all have to take the feedback, good or bad, as a gift and as intended to help us to become individually and collectively stronger, better.

Every player had the opportunity to open up, without interruption and give each other feedback as well as some collective thoughts to help the team to move forward. Andy only talked to ask questions to bring the conversation back into line or to offer a personal view. My role was similar and I also took notes so we could come away with a maximum of 3 collective goals for the coming weeks as well as 2 keys bits of feedback for each player.

I popped the feedback notes for each player under their door later that evening for their perusal.

Whilst the Test Series was lost 1–0, England won the ODI series, the 2009 Ashes, the 2010 T20 World Cup, the 2010/11 Ashes and went to number 1 Test Match Nation within the next 2 years.

Andy Flower became England’s most successful coach ever and whilst he did so many good things in his tenure, I believe the most transformational intervention was his meeting in Antigua.

Could this approach work for your team?

Meeting #2: The clarity approach.

I get the sense that this is the meeting based approach taken by the West Indies team following their thumping in the 1st Test at Edgbaston.

Their team didn’t seem to be split at all as in the case of England in early 2009; They seemed to be naive and prone to making the same mistakes over and over again.

Captain, Jason Holder revealed “We sat down as a team and we had a really, really good meeting after the Edgbaston Test match and I felt from there I could see most of the guys understood a lot more about what was required of them and where we needed to be in terms of coming into this Test match and performing.”

Players such as Kraigg Braithwaite and Shia Hope played with absolute clarity in their game. They left the ball exceptionally at Headingley and made the vastly experienced England opening bowlers come back to their strengths as a result.

The management also learnt from Birmingham when it came down to the balance of the bowling attack. Shannon Gabriel bought pace and nip into a bowling unit which was solely reliant on Kemar Roach as an attacking option. Gabriel operated around 86–90 mph for the whole Test which was in stark contrast to the offerings of Joseph and Cummins in the previous match.

Bishop was bought in as a legspinning threat. Although he didn’t bowl a huge amount of overs at Leeds, the intention was clear. West Indies were aiming to bowl England out.

Do your players have absolute clarity regarding their game and also the requisite skill required to be successful in that format?

Clarity allows players to take appropriate options, to commit to each ball. The Windies appeared to have this in abundance in the 2nd Test Match.

Meeting #2: The motivational approach.

This one is a belter! Basically, you use someone else’s words or opinions to hurt the pride of your team, you stoke up the emotion and then sit back and wait to see a reaction.

This one is easier in International cricket as you are never short of opinions from commentators, ex-players, pundits and journalists.

Somerset have a fans forum called “grockles.com”. It gives fans or observers an opportunity to write their views and discuss their thoughts on the progress, regression, and state of the club. Someone posts a question and then a core group, in the main, lend their opinions.

Sometimes, there can be some good stuff on there. Really valid, great questions and good discussions. On more than one occasion there was a thread that challenged my view and made me look at alternative approaches which may make a difference.

Most of the time, it was fairly negative stuff so instead of getting grumpy about it, I would paraphrase the more damming statements within my team talks.

The reaction from the players was excellent on the couple of occasions that I used this approach.

Mark Robinson (England Women’s Head Coach) used the words of the West Indies captain Stefanie Taylor as a motivator to his team ahead of the 5th and Final ODI in the West Indies last year. Taylor had allegedly been quoted calling her English opponents as “soft” ahead of the series decider.

Robinson asked the team if the criticism hurt them? Then said that a comment such as that should bring about a reaction.

England won the last game comfortably to win the series and take a lot of confidence into the next series against Sri Lanka.

Hurt pride is a great thing if managed delicately.

Honesty, Clarity and Motivation. 3 meeting types that can help turn the ship 180 degrees in the RIGHT direction.It’s vital to consider the needs of your team, your own personal style of facilitation and also the circumstances surrounding your teams predicament.

Choose the approach wisely. Just like the West Indies did famously this week.