THE MENTAL GAME

This article was first published in the Cricket Leinster T20 Finals Day Match Programme. It is another brilliant piece by Peter Prendergast which most cricketers (past or present) will identify with!

Only last week a club member asked me to advise her teenage son about coping with the mental side of cricket. Was she insane? Talk about the blind leading the blind. I remember many years ago, resolving to be less neurotic about my batting.

First off I intended to rid myself of all superstitions. No more special match day shoes or warming up with a particular bowler beforehand. Right pad on before the left? That one definitely had to go. Regardless of weather conditions, I had always batted in a sleeveless sweater and would never put on my batting gloves before I was 30 yards or so from the crease. Why would I even think about receiving the correct guard since asking for anything other than middle and leg would surely bring misfortune upon me? The list had grown through two lean seasons.

Sometimes I stole other people’s superstitions, and would then think it was no wonder that chap never made any runs. I would never bat in a cap and of course it became clear after a few games that my new Pony boots had a hex on them.

All of which, of course, was completely bonkers. Unlike most things, batting never seemed to get any easier the more I did it. Was there some sort of joke being played on me? Cricket shows us all a glimpse of the purest pleasure in the form of a perfect off drive and then for most of us it’s right back into that trough of mediocrity again.

Some days every shot you play ends up at extra cover; two days later square leg has a pain in his face picking up the ball and tossing it back to the bowler. It can be very confusing. Batting is a series of trade offs. Close your stance and you are likely to fall over and get bowled, open it too much and you are vulnerable to a slip catch.

Somewhere along the way you pick up some runs and you’re in buoyant form for a week. Sustaining a run of form, however, that’s a more difficult task, particularly when you wake on matchday mornings with a ball of anxiety heavy in your stomach.

Cricket with its inevitable failure is a dreadful sport to become intense about. Yet there seems to be some sort of fascination about the game that it attracts so many who take it personally, who mull over failure to a ridiculous degree, and yet who tolerate all the lousy days in the hope that there’s a good one on the way.

But I have, of course, learned some things along the way. Superstition is nothing more than a contrived connection between things we fear and cannot control (injury, poor performance) and random things we can control (a lucky sweater or which pad goes on first). If I allow my opening partner through the gate first I will make runs today.

Yes, we know this is insane but we suspend our rational mind and use this lunacy as a comfort blanket in the hours before we bat. And where is the harm in this? The harm like most things lies in excess; in allowing this irrationality in we can open a Pandora’s Box of problems.

I remember, on more than one occasion, almost crashing my car on the way to a match as I frantically scoured my surroundings for that second magpie to match the one that happened to cross my path.

I brought my teenage clubmate on a lap and we discussed his cricket. He receives a small amount of private coaching so I suggested that perhaps his coach might watch him bat on the Pembroke YouTube channel and address a minor problem which exists in his swing.

Then I gave him a list of things – selection, punctuality, attitude towards his team-mates, inclusion in international squads, position in batting order – and asked him which he could control and which he couldn’t.

‘Control the controllables’ has become one of cricket’s biggest cliches but the real knack lies not in the extent to which you exert control over what you can but rather in the degree to which you can let everything else go. Selection, captaincy decisions, who you bat with? If these things are beyond your control why would you waste your time on them?

Even whether or not you make runs or take wickets; since that too is beyond your control, you really need to let it go.

Learning a sport is a process, I explained, and if nothing else experience has taught me that that is where attention is best directed. If you can’t affect it, why worry about it?

As my young clubmate and I finished our lap together what was it I recognised in his expression? Calmness or confidence maybe? A little wisdom or greater understanding?
Then it struck me. It was, of course, joyous relief at the prospect of getting away from me!