Cricket is a tough mental game that involves many opportunities for players to experience a plethora of emotions. These can range from unbridled joy experienced by a batter when a blistering cover drive pierces the field to bring up a deserving century to the devastation experienced when the stumps are shattered by the very first delivery faced.

Apart from the opening batters and bowlers, essentially all other participants don’t know exactly when they are going to be involved in the match. Such uncertainty can play havoc with their preparation. Once a wicket falls, a batter has only two minutes to be ready to face the first delivery. This means facing a group of 11 opponents who are confident and aggressive because they have just gained a wicket.

In cricket there is hardly any opportunity for the visitors to practice on the pitch prior to the match. In other sports such as football, hockey, basketball and tennis, players can become accustomed to the conditions before they compete. Thus, cricketers face more uncertainty as they prepare for the encounter.

A batter may bat for only one minute in a day of batting. That is, the batter can get out first ball and sit and watch the rest of the play. Surely there can be no worse torture for a serious athlete who has prepared diligently to have the event over in an instant.

The length of the match creates a mental as well as physical challenge. Fielders may essentially play no part in the match for many minutes and then suddenly have to catch a nick from a batter flying at great speed.

The fate of batters is largely under their control, but in some cases an umpiring error can lead to their premature exit. The same can happen to a bowler who can suffer frustration from a poor decision given by an umpire. The players thus need to learn to be prepared for such disappointment and focus on their next task.

History is replete with examples of success achieved by players and teams with inferior talent and fitness. Tennis aficionados would recall how Arthur Ashe at age 31 dismantled the game of seemingly invincible reigning champion Jimmy Connors in 1975 Wimbledon finals.

In 2005, Bangladesh pulled off what was the biggest shock in the history of cricket when they beat Aussies in a one-day match. The Australian team had been 100/1 on to win before the match.

Clearly, these teams or individuals did not suddenly produce better skills or fitness, so the key to these upsets had to be the change in their mental preparation. Remember, these mental skills can be taught and development of mental toughness in cricketers should become a major part in any elite training program.

I have tried to dig out the research work of the best of the sports psychologists, including the work of Dr Daniel Gucciardi of the University of Western Australia who specifically worked on mental toughness in cricketers, so that our elite cricketers can benefit from it, if they wish to.

Dr Gucciardi identified the following core characteristics in the make-up of a mentally tough performer: self-belief or confidence of player in own ability, self or intrinsic motivation to do the best, positive and tough attitude, the ability to thrive through pressure, resilience to adapt and bounce back from adversity, the ability to focus attention on aspects relevant to one’s performance, affective intelligence also known as ability to manage emotions and game awareness.

The players can improve their mental skills if they apply the following practices during training routines. For players with a passive attitude before a match, an energetic warm-up with forceful instructions is recommended to raise adrenaline and aggression levels. Conversely, with players who are overly excited before a match, relaxation exercises are recommended. Deep breathing or hearing positive reinforcement are useful strategies.

The next step to improve mental skill is reinforcement of the correct movement pattern which helps in developing automatic skill response. Psychologists have observed that if players perform a drill well, they should repeat it for several days in a row.

A vital aspect for mental improvement for any player is the visualized skilled movement pattern. The players must visualise the way they want to perform a skill. Visualisation can help bowlers as they prepare to bowl. Visualisation is different for batters because they don’t know where the ball is going to be bowled. Still visualisation is of great use for developing the feelings, rhythms and execution of particular shots.

In our case where fielders droop easy catches at the boundary, the players need to visualise running from the deep, focusing on the flight of the ball and visualise absorbing the catch with soft hands close to the body. This can be practised by the fielders between the deliveries bowled.

Sybervision is a term that may not sound very familiar to most of the readers. In fact, it is obtained by watching the performance of a model athlete repeatedly on a TV screen. This process follows neurolinguistics programming to cement the skill into the subconscious of the athlete and help in improving the performance a great deal.

Controlling self-talk is extremely important in cricket. Often, player thoughts are negative, which can inhibit their performance. To control self-talk, a player must first make himself aware of their negative thoughts and find ways to stop them immediately. For batters and wicketkeepers, the focus should return to the ball. Such thoughts as “Be positive with my feet", “keep the ball under my belt”, “keep the head steady” for the batters and “watch the ball into my gloves” for the wicketkeeper can help a great deal in maintaining the focus.

Selective attention amongst the batters can be developed by developing a visual tracking strategy by the coaches by focusing on the point of release of the ball from the bowler’s hand. This mental skill can be achieved by making the player stand behind a batter in the net and observe the bowler running in and delivering the ball as it approaches the batter. The players are thus instructed to focus on finding the path of the ball. Note that this drill can also be done with the help of a bowling machine with the “Now” command corresponding to the ball being placed into the machine.

There are a number of mental skill practices available for improvement of wicketkeepers, batters, bowlers and fielders used in modern cricket to improve match performance.

In total Pakistan will play 7 tests, 11 ODIS and 8 T20s across 2023, which doesn’t include matches of Asia Cup in Pakistan in September & ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in October/ November in India, followed by 3 tests in December against Australia. This means a long gap for Pakistan for international cricket after the third ODI against New Zealand on 13th Jan 2023.

Just to refresh our memories, 132 ODIs have been played between India & Pakistan, India won 55 ODIs, whereas Pakistan won 73. In the 59 between the two teams since 1952, Pakistan stood victorious 12 times as compared to 9 wins by India. In the 9 T20s India had an upper hand with 6 wins. But when it comes to big matches between the two arch rivals with similar physical fitness and cricketing skill sets the statistics are a bit diverse.

Pakistan and India have so far faced each other five times in ICC Championships in which India won three times out of five matches. In the two matches of Asia Cup T20, India won both its encounters.

These statistics show that the fault-lines are not just in our cricketing technique, quality of players, their physical makeup of leadership and coaching inadequacies, but our players seriously lack mental strength to overcome difficult and challenging situations in critical games.

I am sure that PCB coaching staff will focus on this very important aspect of the game and make use of time available with players in developing their mental toughness before the team gets engaged in important international assignments in ICC World Cup in India and 3 tests to be played against Australia in Australia later this year.

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