Pakistan Twenty20 Captain Mohammad Hafeez went into denial when asked about his poor form. “I am not too worried because these things happen to every cricketer and, overall, I think my performance has not been bad.” Jonathan Trott’s withdrawal from England duties on the recent Aussie tour has surprised fans. He was not psychologically equipped to handle it. It would be a desperate end to a potentially great career if Trott were to head in the same direction as Marcus Trescothick and Michael Yardy, but once the sense of self-doubt and denial becomes so devastatingly fragile it can be devilishly difficult to heal.
Dr Mark Bawden is a sports psychologist who divides his time between working with the UK cricket team and being head of sports psychology at the English Institute of Sport. When interviewed, he says, “In normal life, everybody experiences fear, anxiety and self-doubt. My job is helping people realise that confidence is not the absence of fear or doubt, it is trust in your method. The art of sports psychology is to simplify people’s thinking to its absolute minimum. In cricket, if you are batting for a long period of time, the one thing you have to do is watch the ball and ignore everything else, like what the bowler is doing, the crowd and the cameras.”
Psychology is another weapon in the cricketer’s armoury in gaining the winning edge. The specialised field of sports psychology has developed rapidly in recent years. The importance of a sports psychologist as an integral member of cricket teams is widely recognised. Sports psychologists can teach skills to help cricketers enhance their learning process and motor skills, cope with competitive pressures, fine-tune the level of awareness needed for optimal performance, and stay focused amid the many distractions of team travel and in the competitive environment. Psychological training should be an integral part of cricket’s holistic training process, carried out in conjunction with other training elements. This is best accomplished by a collaborative effort among the coach, the sport psychologist and the cricketer. However, a knowledgeable and interested coach can learn basic psychological skills and impart them to cricket, especially during actual practice.
The popularity of sports psychology, both as an academic discipline and an applied practice, in cricket has grown substantially over the past decades. The UK cricket team has relished it through the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) performance Psychology Team, which aims to work with coaches, as well as directly with players, to help optimise the mental development, mental readiness and ongoing mental performance of players in the UK squads. In turn, the team continually benefits from training for toughness coaching, mental skills strategies and team dynamics. Few within the realm of competitive cricket would argue with the importance of being mentally prepared prior to a cricket competition as well as the need to maintain that particular mindset during a competitive contest. Nevertheless, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) administrators are still quite reluctant to seek out the services of a qualified sports psychologist, even if they believe it could help. One of the primary reasons for this hesitation appears to be a lack of understanding about the process and the mechanisms by which these mental skills affect performance.
Unlike the ‘harder sciences’ of sports physiology and biochemistry where athletes can see the tangible results in themselves or other athletes (e.g. he or she lifted weights, developed larger muscles and is now stronger/faster as a result), the unfamiliar and often esoteric nature of sports psychology appears to be impeding a large number of cricketers from soliciting these important services. As such, the purpose of this article is to provide the PCB with a simple argument depicting how mental skills training for the Pakistan cricket team’s players can translate into improvement within competition performance.
The increased stress of competitions can cause cricketers to react both physically and mentally in a manner that can negatively affect their performance abilities. They may become tense, they worry about the outcome of the competition, they find it hard to concentrate on the task in hand and experience anxiety and depression. This has led coaches to take an increasing interest in the field of sports psychology and in particular in the area of competitive anxiety. That interest has focused on techniques that cricketers can use in the competitive situation to maintain control and optimise their performance. Once learned, these techniques allow cricketers to relax and to focus attention, in a positive manner, on the task of preparing for and participating in competition.
Sports psychology is about improving attitude and mental game skills to help cricketers perform best by identifying limiting beliefs and embracing a healthier philosophy about their game. Sports performance is determined by a combination of physiological factors, technical skill, tactical insight and state of mind. Hence, psychological training is very important to enhance performance and confidence, which is so critical for success in the game.
In cricket we continually come up against opponents who always seem to have an edge over us. The recent series between Pakistan and South Africa on the cricket field is a good example of this. This case is relevant given the Pakistanis attempted to deal with the seeming invincibility of the South Africans, and was reflected in the recent one-day series in South Africa. How the South Africans ‘got to’ some of the Pakistan batsmen, particularly recently reappointed Pakistan Captain Mohammad Hafeez, in spite of the fact that they steamed to a substantial lead and decisive one-day victory is a wonder. It is as much a psychological issue as anything else; at this level, tension escalates and, because of that, errors creep into the player’s game. The problem is that this can develop into something of a vicious circle, in that form drops away as do confidence levels, leaving room for self-doubt and more anxiety. Often, individual players are targeted relentlessly.
What is it about successful teams that leads to continued performance excellence along with a psychological or mental edge over their opponents? This is a difficult area, though some interesting and somewhat controversial suggestions might be worthy of consideration. Primarily, successful teams personify a culture of success and, at the same time, a belief in self, like invincibility. Successful teams that develop a winning streak seem to have a major hold over their opposition because of the belief they have in themselves and their performance. They may often treat their opposition with seemingly overt competitive aggression but they need to harbour razor edge self-belief and mental skills training in their preparation and thinking.
The writer is a member of the Diplomate American Board of Medical Psychotherapists Dip.Soc Studies, member Int’l Association of Forensic Criminologists, associate professor Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Huntercombe Group United Kingdom. He can be reached at [email protected]