In this episode we discuss Game Day mindset and how what you think has a massive impact on how you perform. Something that I’ve heard a lot from people in our community and I’ve seen it first hand with some of my teammates over the years, is players who are good in the nets but can’t transfer their skills into a match. Our minds and thoughts can either help us or hinder us and we explore this in more detail in this episode.

Here are a few things we discussed in this episode:

• Justin Langer’s idea of Batting Perfection and how it had nothing to do with the result.
• Routines bring confidence and trust in yourself and your game + how important routines are in other sports like tennis, golf and baseball and how if you look closely, the top athletes in all those sports have extremely consistent routines, each and every time they perform their skill.
• There is a difference between having mental and physical routines and how the very top athletes will have some sort of mental routine or process that focuses their thoughts and attention into the next ball.
• The mental side of your game CAN BE PRACTICED or developed. Even though “in cricket, our training environment is so different from a game” that doesn’t mean we can’t develop our mental routines and processes. Buck shares how he encourages his athletes to mark a cross on the ground and use it as a spot to go in between balls to refocus.
• Scolls shares his 3 R’s: Reflect, Relax, Refocus to get your mind back into the next ball. Both techniques can most definitely be practised in the training environment but either way, if you want to work on your mental process, aim to slow your sessions down so they’re more like a match!
• A lot of people won’t know what their routine is yet but you’ve got to keep experimenting with it. Keep experimenting until the answer becomes clearer and clearer and when something seems to work, try and continue doing it for a while to see if it sticks.

We hope you enjoy this episode!