Wishing you and your family a healthy, happy and safe Christmas and New Year from the team at Elite Cricket.

It’s great to see cricket in the news for the right reasons. The 1st Australia vs. South Africa Test was a riveting, high standard and see-sawing contest between cricket’s two top ranked teams. South Africa grabbed the initiative and a 1-0 lead in the series and have managed to further dent Australia’s aura of invincibility post the Warne and McGrath era and will be riding high on confidence.

Australia on the other hand will be searching for answers particularly after failing to defend a fourth innings total of 400 plus, however you never write off a champion team and you can bet your bottom dollar Australia will come back hard come Boxing Day!

There is an important lesson in how the South African skipper Greame Smith has modified his approach to leadership on this tour to his last. On the previous tour Smith was highly outspoken and openly provocative towards Australia in the media in comparison to the calm, quiet confidence he has demonstrated this time around as leader.

In doing so he has proven the old adage that actions speak louder than words, in scoring a brilliant second innings century at the WACA and leading his team to an historic win. Focusing on his own game has enabled Smith to direct his talent to influence things where they really count – out on the field and not in the media.

Of course it is great and necessary to be aggressive if you want to play successful cricket however aggression needs to be controlled and channeled positively into great performances, which is exactly what Smith has done.

My former teammates David Boon and Jamie Cox and the other Australian selectors face an interesting challenge when they sit down to pick the team for the Boxing Day test. Among other things they will need to look at how to balance the short-term issue of how to take 20 wickets in a test match with the longer-term consideration of player development. Do they change Krejza and Siddle for Bollinger and Hilfenhaus? or not? Do they stick with a spinner, even if he is not quite ready to deliver consistently at Test level? What do they do with Hayden? Symonds?

It’s a tough and common issue for selectors – short-term pain vs long-term gain! My view would be to have faith and stick with the current squad for now in the hope they will learn and develop into a match winning unit, after all some of our best ever players took a while to get going such as Steve Waugh who debuted in 1985-86 against India and didn’t make a century till 1989 Ashes and Shane Warne who took 1 for 150 odd in his first Test!

All in all it should be a great Boxing Day Test! Enjoy!

CHRISTMAS GIFT CERTIFICATES

Why not give the cricketer in your family an Elite Cricket gift certificate? Elite Cricket gift certificates are available for all our programs and for the denomination of your choice.

Places are available for January 2009 School Holiday Programs, to get your enrolment form simply click on the link below:

Program Schedule: January 2009

JANUARY HIGH PERFORMANCE ACADEMY

• St. Ignatius College, Riverview – 8th & 9th January 2009

JANUARY SCHOOL HOLIDAY PROGRAM

• Lindfield Oval, Tryon Road – 12th, 13th & 14th January 2009
• Morrison Bay Oval, Gladesville – 14th & 15th January 2009
• St. Ignatius College, Riverview – 19th & 20th January 2009
• Shore Sports Fields, Northbridge – 22nd & 23rd January 2009

JANUARY ‘ON THE BALL’ PROGRAM

• Lindfield Oval, Tryon Road – 12th, 13th & 14th January 2009
• Morrison Bay Oval, Gladesville – 14th & 15th January 2009
• St. Ignatius College, Riverview – 19th & 20th January 2009
• Shore Sports Fields, Northbridge – 22nd & 23rd January 2009

JANUARY HIGH PERFORMANCE – BOOT CAMP

• Five Dock Indoor Sports Centre – 21st January 2009

Cheers

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