Mental Toughness – Your key to Success
Cricket involves plenty of mind games, it is often said that cricket is all in the mind; indeed most experienced players will tell you that 80% of the game is in your head. Cricketer spend the vast majority of our time practising technique. Yes that is important, however it is equally important to be working at mental toughness – conditioning the mind to deal with the situations we are likely to face.
There are training methods that will help improve your mental strength based upon the sort of game scenario you might come across. Your aim should be to replicate match conditions as much as possible, to practice as you play. There is a famous quote on sportsent which says “Train hard – fight easy.” It’s a great piece of advice….
Match Pressure
Cricketers generally lack pressure oriented practice routine, routines listed involve the presence of pressure. Pressure is the single biggest factor in failing to achieve a cricketing objective – not technique. Imagine being asked to throw a ball at target in fielding practice, a task you fulfil with no dramas. Then, the coach asks you to throw the same ball but tells you that if you miss it, he will drop you from the team for the rest of the season. The technical aspect of the catch is no different but the outcome certainly is.
Without resorting to such drastic measures, there are incentives/pressures you can introduce yourself to help you increase your mental toughness. Here are some examples: Physical training – 1 lap of the ground for every catch you drop. Financial – You decide to give $2 to charity for every wide you bowl during a channel bowling drill. Treats – Every time you get out in the nets, you offer to buy the successful bowler a drink.
Mental Session: Batting
- Nets – Price on your wicket. The easiest thing in the world is to go in and look a million dollars in the nets in the knowledge that you’ll have your 20 minutes of batting regardless of how many times you’re dismissed. Be hard on yourself. Tell the other players if you are out in the nets to a genuine dismissal, you’ll be coming out. It will concentrate your mind, I guarantee.
- Set Targets. Set yourself a target to win the game off your own bat. If it’s 45 not out, play until you achieve your target, altering the field realistically as the fielding captain would.
- Playing according to field. With a minimal amount of bowlers in your net, ask each of them to set you a field. This is excellent practice, particularly against spin, where you will need a clear idea of how you are going to score your runs.
- Runs rate tracking. Set yourself a scoring rate during nets in runs needed per over either in setting or chasing a target. If you fall too far behind, or get out, another batter padded up comes in and takes your place.
Mental Session: Bowling
- Objective bowling to a keeper or mitt. Excellent practice away from the nets. For every wide you bowl (put out 2 cones as your channel that the ball must go through being very strict on legside wides), impose a penalty on yourself.
- Bowl with different balls. Ever bowled with a new ball or very old ball in a match and it just didn’t feel right in your hand? Or asked not to bowl with the new ball because you don’t like the lacquer? If you always practice with your favourite net ball which feels lovely and comfortable when you grip it, you’re making life very hard for yourself when it comes to bowling in a match and you have no choice over which ball you use. Spend $50 and buy yourself couple of new ball to bowl with – then try the channel bowling drill with penalties. Same applies to spineers where they bowl with new balls as these days it is happening quite often that spineer opens up the bowling to surprise the batters.
- Death bowling. Bowling at the death is a challenge to most bowlers. Set a field and ask the batter to try and hit you for boundaries. Include an incentive for him for every 4 or 6 he hits.
Mental Session: Fielding & Wicketkeeping
- High Pressure catching. Ask your coach/teammate to hit you a range of different catches. Every one you drop and impose a penalty on yourself.
- Target catches. You have to catch 20 balls on the trot, if you drop 1 it’s back to 0.
- Clean Pick up. Have series of balls rolled towards you, if you fail to collect any of them cleanly, you back to start.
- 10 throws. You are thrown or rolled 10 balls, all of which have to be caught or collected cleanly. All 10 of your throws must reach the keeper/mitter on the full.
- Stumping chance. Keeping wicket up to the stumps, a batter faces 6 balls knowing one of them will see him leave his crease and offer a stumping opportunity. If you fluff it, fitness penalties of 1 minute non-stop press ups or sit ups.
- Timed fielding. You agree with your coach a reasonable time frame to complete a fielding task, for example, retrieving and throwing a ball in from the outfield. If due to misfielding or a bad throw, the task is not completed, you suffer a penalty.
There are multiple variations on these ideas but I hope they will allow you to train the most important part of your cricketing set up – your mindset.
Good luck and thanks for reading.