Skill acquisition experts tell us that it takes around 10,000 hours or 10 years of focussed practice to develop expertise in a skill!

Whether your goals are to play for Australia, recover from a bad season, take your game to another level or simply get the best out of your ability, these goals will not come easily or without effort.

The best investment you can make in achieving your cricket goals is to put in the time and effort to develop the best possible skill set you can. Let’s face it, to score runs for example, is a huge challenge when you have 10 ways to get out every ball and 11 opponents whose job it is to see you fail! Your best protection against this challenge is an excellent array of skills that you understand and can apply consistently. To attain them you have to put in the work, there is no way around it, however, the benefits of striving to be the best you can be are well worth the effort required to achieve your goals.

The off-season, presents an ideal opportunity to make the effort to invest in your skills, whether it is to build consistency and precision around your existing strengths or to work through a change strategy to turn your weaknesses into strengths. The benefit of working hard through the off-season is that the out of competition period offers an opportunity to experiment and work through change or extend your capabilities away from the competitive pressures of a match. It also presents you with the chance to accumulate the hours of focussed quality practice you will need to master your skills.

Good luck

Mark

What does it mean to be mentally tough?  It means making the effort to think of and develop a game plan that gives you your best chance of success and then having the commitment and discipline to carry out your plan under any circumstances.

To develop a plan for success, you must have a very clear understanding of how your game works and this includes knowing your strengths, weaknesses and how you play best.  The odds are that if you have ever performed well in the past you carried out a process to help you achieve success. In general, consistently repeating your individual process for success you will give yourself your best chance of success. 

Great players understand their game very well, right down to tiny details, which allows them to know exactly what they are doing at every step of their performance and also to self-correct rapidly if required.

Once you have established your plan for success, you need to carry it out and this takes discipline and commitment.  There are many distractions that will take your mind off doing your job successfully (executing your plan for success) if you focus on them.  Remember that any time you are not focussed on implementing the steps you need to take to be successful, is a waste of effort if you truly wish to succeed in achieving your goals. 

It takes genuine toughness to commit to focussing on your success process in the face of challenging and uncertain conditions but remember, giving up or not thinking are easy and don’t work. The hard road of being mentally tough is difficult but the effort is worth the reward,  if you have the desire to succeed.

A helpful way to self-manage the execution of your plan, is to firstly know your plan and your job (your job is to implement your plan) and secondly, some simple self-questioning in the middle while you are playing can help focus your mind on the job at hand.  A good question to ask yourself is, ‘What is my job’, this will not only bring your mind back to the present, it will help you to focus on what you need to do now to succeed.  We often get distracted thinking about past or future events, for example what happened the previous delivery or how you will perform at the end of the day.

If your can leave the past in the past and understand that the future is only influenced by the next ball, it will help you to know that the most important thing you ever do in cricket is deal with the next ball the very best you can.

Good luck

Mark

Discipline is a word that is used a lot in sport and in this article I will explore how I think discipline applies to cricket.
 
Cricket is a game full of challenges.  Every time we go out onto the field we face skilful opponents in a range of challenging conditions.  For every ball you are out on the field you face tough competitors whose main interest is to stop you doing well!  As a batsman you have 11 members of the fielding team aspiring to take your wicket for as few runs a possible and as a bowler you have batsmen aiming to make sure you don’t get any wickets and that they score lots of runs from your bowling!
 
In other words, as a cricketer there is something at stake every ball. There are risks in that something can go wrong for you at every stage of your performance.
 
Discipline is a critical weapon for you as a cricketer to ensure you combat the risks you face to the best of your ability.  By this I mean having the discipline to do what it takes to succeed in an innings is critical in establishing a good performance. Having the discipline to do what it takes over a season and a career is the key to strong and consistent performances in the long term. 

The discipline to succeed comes from  your desire to succeed, as this desire will drive you to do what is necessary to succeed.  Remember that this is not an easy road to travel, but nothing worthwhile (including runs and wickets) comes easy.  However, making the effort to have the discipline to do what it takes will be worthwhile if you really wish to achieve your goals.
 
For example, the major risk a batsman faces is getting out.  The most likely forms of dismissal statistically speaking are bowled, lbw and caught behind the wicket.  These forms of dismissal occur from balls that are challenging the stumps in terms of line and length.  A batsman can take a major step toward managing this risk by playing straight, that is hitting the ball on the line of the stumps straight back down the pitch with the full face of the bat, as this will maximise the surface area contact with the ball while significantly reducing the possibility of missing the ball (bowled and lbw) or an edge behind.  This is a simple tactical concept, however the real challenge after you understand the tactics involved is to have the discipline to carry out this process ball after ball over an innings, game, season or career.
 
Consistent actions lead to consistent results, so if you have a plan, your tactics are good and you have the technique to back them up (you should have!), maybe an area you should explore is your discipline. 
 
Have you got the discipline to do what it takes to succeed ball after ball and season after season?
 
Good luck

Mark

Balance is a critical skill for successful stroke execution 

The aim of a batsman is to score as many runs as possible as quickly as possible in order to provide their team with the runs to set a total to allow the team’s bowlers with the maximum amount of time in which to dismiss the other team or to chase the opposition team’s score.

In order to achieve this aim, a critical skill that a batsman must master is to understand the characteristics of the ball (line and length) and then to play the best possible stroke in response.

How does the batsman obtain the information about the ball? The batsman watches the ball out of the bowler’s hand to determine its line and length. Consequently, it is fair to say that visual skills play a very significant role in the success of a batsman. If you don’t know where the ball is, how can you play the right stroke in response?

Given the critical importance of visual skills, I would take this opportunity to parallel another daily life application where you need to use visual skills to interpret and understand precise information: reading!

What does your body do when you read? It remains stable. I believe we do this to enable our head to be still to allow our eyes to follow the letters and words on the page. This has a significant implication to batting as, if you agree that your eyes are critical to obtaining the important information when batting, it makes sense that a batsman remains as stable as possible to provide the eyes with the best possible opportunity to sight the ball, just as you do when you read.

This means that a batsman should hit the ball from a stable base. Although footwork is another vital component of batting, your eyes are more important, as your feet cannot see the ball! Your footwork must enable you to get into the best position to see the ball. If your feet are moving when you are trying to hit the ball so are your eyes! You don’t see people running down the street reading books! Additionally, when you have your force stabilised you also allow your power to be channelled through the bat.

Conclusion: A stable or balanced hitting position provides you with the best opportunity to watch and make judgements about the ball and delivers maximum power to the stroke. Balance demonstrates a greater degree of control of the quality of your skill execution. How can you expect to control the ball if you can’t control your own movements?

Good luck

Mark

One of my favourite sayings is, ‘It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get up that counts’.

I think that this is a very relevant expression for us as cricketers. Basically it means that in order to succeed you have to be prepared to accept and learn from failure.

Although failure is not a pleasant part of your job, it is nevertheless part of your job and as such you will need to deal with it and learn from it. Anyone who has tasted success in any field in my view has been prepared to get up at least one more time than they were knocked down! If you give up or admit defeat you risk never tasting success and let’s face it success in any field does not come easy and one of the main challenges in successfully attaining your goals is coping with failure!

You need to develop the belief and mental toughness not to be beaten by failure, you need to develop persistence. In order to succeed you need to summon the courage to pursue your goals and dreams, despite failure in the short term, after all ‘Form is temporary, Class is permanent!’

I will detail three brief examples of persistence, where successful cricketers have turned adversity into success by persistence.

• Justin Langer, Damien Martyn and Matthew Hayden were all dropped from the Test team in the mid-nineties and came back years later to be devestingly, effective Test players
• Shane Warne’s comeback form suspension and personal crisis to achieve his best ever Ashes series wicket haul of 40 wickets since his debut in 1991
• Ricky Ponting comeback from a disciplinary suspension to become Australian captain and one of the world’s best batsmen

If these guys gave up when faced with adversity, disappointment and defeat they would never have gone on to achieve the wonderful success they did. These guys had the belief, courage and persistence to keep going when they were seemingly knocked down! Persistence is a key attribute of a champion and has very little to do with your outswinger or cut shot and the beauty of it is anyone can be persistent! Persistence does require courage, discipline and effort, but the effort is well worth making if your dreams and goals mean a lot to you.

How is your persistence? Is it strong enough to help you achieve your goals?

Cheers

Mark

Skill acquisition experts tell us that it takes around 10,000 hours or 10 years of focused practice to develop expertise in a skill!

Whether your goals are to play for Australia, recover from a bad season, take your game to another level or simply get the best out of your ability, these goals will not come easily or without effort.

The best investment you can make in achieving your cricket goals is to put in the time and effort to develop the best possible skill set you can. Let’s face it, to score runs for example, is a huge challenge when you have 10 ways to get out every ball and 11 opponents whose job it is to see you fail! Your best protection against this challenge is an excellent array of skills that you understand and can apply consistently. To attain them you have to put in the work, there is no way around it, however, the benefits of striving to be the best you can be are well worth the effort required to achieve your goals.

The off-season presents an ideal opportunity to make the effort to invest in your skills, whether it is to build consistency and precision around your existing strengths or to work through a change strategy to turn your weaknesses into strengths. The benefit of working hard through the off-season is that the out of competition period offers an opportunity to experiment and work through change or extend your capabilities away from the competitive pressures of a match. It also presents you with the chance to accumulate the hours of focused quality practice you will need to master your skills.

Our High Performance Individual Coaching program focuses on acquiring and mastering critical technical skills to optimise performance. 

• Great for building confidence in your own game
• Learn, improve and hone new skills away from the pressure of match play
• Correct bad techniques (particularly those that may cause injury) before they become an integral part of your game and are difficult to change
• You can book for one session or as many as you like however we recommend a minimum of 5 sessions over consecutive weeks to enable a stronger understanding and knowledge of your game

Cheers

Mark

When asked about his amazing success as a fast bowler at the highest level Glenn McGrath recently said that the complicated thing (in producing a successful performance) is to keep things simple! Although this sounds a bit funny there is a lot of merit to what he is saying.

Glenn McGrath’s greatest strength as a fast bowler is his relentless accuracy (simple), which enables him to maximise his chances of taking wickets by directing an extremely high percentage of his deliveries at a ‘top of off stump’ line and length, a fact which he makes no secret of.

Bowling to this plan gives him the maximum chances of taking wickets, as this strategy allows him to capture wickets bowled, lbw and caught behind the wicket which are the most frequent ways batsmen are dismissed. In other words by executing this plan he gives the batsman lots of chances to make mistakes (which is how we are most often out!).

McGrath plays the percentages because he knows if he can be persistent in this plan he will have a very good chance of success, additionally bowling this line and length makes him very difficult for the batsman to score from as he does not give the batsman much room to work with in terms of line and length.

Glenn McGrath is managing his risk! By sticking to this very simple plan he knows he is a good chance of getting a wicket if the batsman makes a mistake while at the same time he won’t go for too many runs, which allows him to keep bowling. It’s pretty hard to take wickets if you are going for five or more runs an over! It’s impossible to take wickets if you are not bowling and going at five runs an over is a great way to get taken off!

Glenn McGrath does not bowl with amazing pace like Brett Lee, he does not bowl with amazing variety like Andrew Symonds, he’s 35! but he is the arguably the greatest (and simplest) fast bowler in the history of the test cricket. He has a simple and highly effective plan that he executes with precision on a highly consistent basis (simple). He has the technique to execute his plan which is important, as the quality of your plan will only be as good as your ability to execute it and as a developing player you must devote time to acquiring the skills to carry out your plan.

When McGrath says the complicated thing is keeping it simple, I think he means that by determinedly sticking to his simple plan instead of trying to do too much this will give him his best chance of success, as he deals with the pressures of performance such as the quality of his opponents, his age, the game situation, fatigue, the media, his emotions, holding his place in the team, desire for wickets and other things that can distract him from this plan.

Food for thought: 

• Do you have a plan?
• Do you know it in detail?
• Does your technique allow you to execute your plan?
• What skills do you need to master to better execute or enhance your plan?

Good luck

Mark

The only point of practising cricket is to make you a better player in a game. If your cricket practice is not going to help you become a better player by helping you make more runs, take more wickets or more catches and stumpings, there is no point in doing it.

One of the challenges that we face is making sure that training simulates game conditions. Unlike many other sports the nets do not replicate the game exactly, for example, if you get out you still keep batting, there are no no-balls and if you get hit for four the ball does not go to the boundary!

The external consequences we face in the nets are not the same as a game. It can be very difficult, if not impossible to control the external conditions we are faced with at practice. However, a key element of our preparation we can control in order to simulate match conditions, is our thinking. So while you may not be able to match the physical elements of a game at practice, you can replicate the way you think in training to simulate a game.

To make you a better player you can practise how you think at training!

Some of the things you can focus on include;

• How well you can watch the ball
• How well you can put your game plan in place
• Starting your innings including reducing your risks while you begin your innings
• Placing a high price on your wicket
• Being confident
• Enjoying the challenge.

Practice should prepare you for a game much in the same way you study for an exam or in the way an actor learns their lines before a performance, your practice is preparation designed to help you perform. A key to becoming the best you can be is learning to train to play the best you possibly can

Can you get more from your training?

Good luck

Mark