Mr Cricket

by Michael Hussey

  I looked around the group and thought that maybe we just weren’t good enough. We did have opportunities, we had a run-out chance, we dropped a couple of catches and, at this level, you just can’t afford to do that. I was able to look at it philosophically and not panic. It highlighted for us exactly what we needed to work on before we got to the World Cup.

  Having lost the series, I was expecting a bit of a grilling from journalists. I’d been getting panicked phone calls from Cricket Australia people, asking what was going on. They wanted to know what the problem was and whether there was anything they could do to help. Apparently the word around the streets in Australia was that, because we’d lost five games in a row (including the Commonwealth Bank Series finals), we were in the midst of a massive form slump and it was a disaster that meant we couldn’t win the World Cup.

  At least I’d scored a few runs in New Zealand which meant I didn’t have to face questions about my own form. I needn’t have worried. The Australian and New Zealand cricket media understand the game well and realised the long period of playing without a break and a series loss didn’t really mean much in the context of the upcoming World Cup.

  That said, I wasn’t looking for a way out of explaining our losses and I certainly wasn’t going to blame it on the amount of cricket we had played that summer. There were no excuses. We were disappointed to lose, but we were positive about the upcoming challenge. We had it demonstrated to us in no uncertain terms that we had to improve in certain areas and it was good to have it spelt out to us just before the biggest one-day tournament of all.

  HOW DO I PLAY AT MY PEAK?

  PREPARATION: diet, sleep, relax with Amy, practise, fitness, weights, weekly program – no stone unturned

  MOTIVATION: at training, at games

  INTENSITY: at training, at games

  MONDAY: fielding/fitness

  TUESDAY: skills session, net session, long run, fielding

  WEDNESDAY: nets (WACA), weights, skills session, fielding

  THURSDAY: nets (WACA), fielding, write diary

  FRIDAY: game starts.

  We got back to Australia and I had just a couple of days to gather my wits before we headed off on the big tour to the West Indies. It took us two days to get there and I was still feeling the effects of jetlag nearly two weeks later. Luckily, we had a fortnight before the tournament started to play practice games, train and acclimatise. In fact, we prepared as well as I can imagine any Australian team preparing.

  It was peculiar to me, then, why I wasn’t as excited as I should have been coming into that first game. It was the World Cup, yet I wasn’t really feeling primed. Maybe it was because we were playing Scotland first up and we knew we shouldn’t have much trouble winning. That was the likely reason, I think, because when we played South Africa in the third game, I was a different person and was very excited about playing.

  It was a very long tournament and I know there was a lot of talk in Australia about the tournament dragging on and on. But the fact that we had plenty of time between matches was crucial for us, having played such a long stretch of cricket beforehand. We were all missing our families and homes and there were times when many of us felt tired from the regular travelling and playing. But the time between matches allowed us to recover properly, relax a bit, do the appropriate training and also have a bit of time to ourselves.

  History will show that we won the World Cup in about as convincing a manner as possible. However, it was only after I returned home from the tournament that I realised that I’d gone into the World Cup a bit fatigued and not at my best. With a gigantic program ahead of us again throughout late 2007 and into 2008, mental fatigue is going to be an issue I’ll have to confront again.

  The best way I can describe mental fatigue when playing is you can’t quite concentrate on the next ball 100 per cent because there’s a hazy sort of feeling enveloping you. The best way to deal with it is to take your mind off the game. It’s something that Ricky Ponting is very good at and it’s something I need to get better at. I need to find things I enjoy doing away from the game and also be able to not think about the game while doing those things.

  When I’m away from my family for long stretches it can be hard to completely relax and switch off from cricket. Watching a DVD used to be one tactic of mine because it’s a bit of an escape and quite relaxing. But often when I’m watching the movie my mind will start wandering again about cricket or a meeting or a briefing or a sponsor’s function or whatever. Ten minutes will go by and I’ll have to rewind the movie to find out what I’ve missed!

  Mental fatigue is probably something that’s always been a constant in my career but it’s never been spelt out to me as clearly as that huge summer of the NZ tour and the World Cup. Having been confronted with it, I’m now determined to devise new strategies and routines to beat it.

  The rotation policy is here to stay, I guess, given the amount of cricket and travelling involved playing for the national team. That workload is only going to increase in the future. So whatever fears I have of someone taking my place and holding on to it can best be eliminated by making sure that each and every time I play for my country I am fresh and at full capacity.

  CHAPTER 6

  PREPARATION IS THE KEY

  Preparation, habits, superstitions, routines, programs … they are catchphrases that every sportsperson regularly hears. But to what do these terms actually refer? How important are they? How strictly should you adhere to them? The short answer is that they can all play a part in the quality of your performance. However, there does come a point when sticking to them too rigidly can become troublesome.

  It is very easy to become confused over what constitutes a disciplined and healthy lead-up to a big match and taking it too far. Preparation can sometimes be mixed up with obsession. Routines can take on a life of their own if they get out of hand and influence your thought processes too much. I started to see a need to be more flexible in this area when I realised I was driving myself a bit mad with all my habits and idiosyncrasies.

  From my days at Wanneroo and through several years in the WA team, each season I seemed to accumulate superstitions to the point where I had so many habits that I found it hard to keep track of them. If I got out for a low score I would sometimes sit in the dressing room afterwards and wonder which one of them I’d forgot to play out. Did I forget to put on my right pad first? Did I walk onto the ground left foot first instead of right? Did I take only 49 catches in the warm-up and not 50? It was getting out of hand.

  A turning point came at the start of one season around the time of my bad patch for WA, when I said to myself, ‘Right, I’m going to give this a go. I’m going to throw all my superstitions in the bin and not hold on to any and see what happens.’ Sure enough I had a good season. From that time onwards, I paid much less attention to which foot I put on the ground first, or which warm-up exercise I’d forgotten to do.

  Good players believe in themselves, average players want others to believe in them.

  Most players have their regular pre-match or intra-match routines. It’s not something we talk about at all, but it’s obvious. We’ve all noticed how Matthew Hayden gets down on his haunches, stares the bowler down and visualises what he’s going to do before he faces his first ball. Justin Langer would take a big long walk down the pitch and then walk back. Ricky’s the same. He needs to have his throwdowns every single day. Everyone has something that works for them. I’ve had a strong interest in preparation and routine since my earliest days of playing cricket. Being so much smaller than my peers, I was keen to find out about any tricks I could use to compensate. I felt as though I was behind everyone else because I didn’t have natural power. Therefore, if I was going to compete with the top players, every part of my game had to become perfect. That included how I got ready for each match.

  One of the biggest influences I’ve had in this area came from Sandy Gordon, the Western Australia team psychologist. Sandy has been associated with t
he WA team for as long as I can remember. Sandy would never approach you to say he thought you needed to work on this or that. He would simply be available any time of the night or day to help if you so desired. He was always ready to discuss the mental side of the game, or discuss life or anything else. He was very good at listening and would always be able to provide a bucketload of information on virtually any topic to do with the mental side of the game.

  He held quasi tutorials on goalsetting, concentration and preparation, often at Heather’s Hutch, a cafe near the University of Western Australia, where he is a lecturer. He would hand out sheets that you had to fill out about your performance, how you were preparing for matches, how you were going to plan and various associated themes. It might not have suited everyone, but it definitely suited my style and I quickly became fascinated by his methods.

  I’d already heard the term ‘control the controllables’ when I met Sandy, but he made me realise how many controllables there were. There’s the technical side, where you can work on your bat swings and set-up; there’s the physical side, where you can focus on your fitness, strength and condition; and there are other aspects you can control, such as sleep and diet, that play such a big role in performance.

  FROM SANDY GORDON (JUNE 2001)

  You can’t play your best without momentum. It begins (and ends) with the last thing you did. It can hit you all of a sudden and leave you just as quickly. One minute you are walking on air, after stroking a boundary to the fence or taking a wicket, the next minute you are gasping in disbelief at your own incompetence! It’s called momentum, and it’s psychological.

  Its close brother is confidence. Without confidence you have doubt and indecision. With confidence you are definite and believe you can play well. When you have momentum you’ve had confidence for the last few deliveries, e.g. ‘I’ve executed well this over, I’m on a roll, no reason to stop now, it’s my day.’ And this stays with you next delivery and next over.

  You might think that there can’t be many negatives to it and that it will always help you play well. However, with momentum comes exhilaration which, if not contained, can lead to mental errors. Excitement and the rush of playing well causes the release of adrenalin in the bloodstream. You feel a boost of energy, juiced, pumped and focused. While this is a very positive feeling the additional energy has to be accounted for. While most seasoned pros know when to throttle back when the adrenalin bug bites, others allow momentum to soar out of control. Suddenly they become overconfident and turn promising beginnings into failures. They fall off the wave long before the beach.

  To catch a wave of momentum and RIDE IT ALL THE WAY TO THE BEACH:

  1. PREPARE YOURSELF MENTALLY AND YOU CAN PLAY WELL

  Prime your confidence by recalling past successes. Picturing yourself playing well in one or two games in the past can kickstart your confidence in the present.

  2. AVOID UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS OF YOURSELF

  Expect to ‘play as well as you do’. This is much more realistic and often all that is required.

  3. DEVELOP A GAME PLAN

  Focus on executing your strengths.

  4. AVOID CONCERNS WITH POOR WARM-UPS OR NET PERFORMANCES

  Focus instead on getting loose and relaxed for the beginnings of games and sessions.

  5. FOCUS ON THE FIRST OVER

  Rather than outcomes (runs, wickets, catches, etc) think about what you need to do first over. Pot reds first then the colours.

  6. FOCUS ON THE PROCESS

  Focus on execution with each delivery. Such ‘task awareness’ will nullify preoccupation with performing poorly.

  7. ANCHOR POSITIVES

  Use the advantage of good performances to get onto that wave, e.g. ‘good rhythm’, ‘well left’. Use each early success as a sign of even better things to come. Talk to yourself in a nurturing way.

  8. DISMISS CONCERNS WITH THE PAST

  The opposition, ground and conditions may not have been kind to you in the past. But history seldom has much to do with the present, unless you decide differently. Stay in the present.

  9. BE PATIENT WITH A SHAKY START

  Never assume a poor start is a bad omen for the rest of the game. You can turn bad starts around by considering the next delivery as the opportunity to kickstart momentum.

  REGAINING LOST MOMENTUM:

  1. NEVER GIVE UP, TANK OR SULK

  You can never know when the powers of momentum will jump start your performance. And you can’t continue with that monkey on your back, so start somewhere! Treat every delivery as a new opportunity to turn your form around. Tell yourself, ‘With this delivery I’m going to bowl or bat or field like I know I can!’ If you become fatalistic – ‘it’s just not my day’ – you may never get another wave because all you do is look for ‘bad breaks’.

  2. ‘BAD BREAKS’ OCCUR BUT THEY ARE FLUKES, NOT A BAD OMEN

  So don’t talk yourself into having a lousy day. Write off each bad break and get on with preparing for the next delivery. Because momentum is emotional you can actually create negative emotions (e.g. pessimism) early in an innings or bowling spell which accelerates negative momentum. The more you (and others) focus on what you are doing wrong, the greater the despair. Look for ‘good breaks’ and ignore ‘bad breaks’.

  3. ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE

  Pick out the good things from every delivery. Did you watch the ball? Did you pick and hit the correct target? Did you execute well? Be known as a player and as a team for doing this each over, session, day, and game. Create a team and management culture of positive mental momentum.

  MOMENTUM BREAKERS:

  • Double-mindedness

  • Jealousy

  • Conformity

  • Tradition

  • The past

  • Fear

  • Indecision

  MOMENTUM MAKERS:

  • Focus

  • Wisdom

  • Change

  • Creativity

  • Dreams

  • Faith

  • Action

  IN SUMMARY:

  1. Momentum states in cricket – negative, neutral, positive – are psychological. Negative momentum will ruin your day and render you miserable. In neutral you wait for others to determine your attitude and to make things happen. Look on the bright side and you will always be formidable competitors and enjoy what you are doing. Momentum is psychological – it’s always a matter of choice.

  2. ‘You may not be able to win a match with the next delivery, but you can make the journey shorter.’ Never, ever quit on yourself or the team.

  3. ‘Catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world.’

  Sandy loves golf, so he began by suggesting that, because a golfer goes through the same routine every ball, young cricketers should aim to do that too. We got old footage so we could see exactly how we faced up to each ball, what sort of little movements we did and we analysed the footage to see what was right and what was wrong in our styles, just as a golfer would.

  But Sandy wanted to take it further – and this is where it got really interesting. He wanted us to think about our game beyond just hitting balls. He told us to think of a time when we had batted really well and consider how we prepared and what our routines were at the time. We got thinking about the numerous things we did to be ready to produce that good performance. He asked us to write down the elements that made it possible. All the elements, even those that we thought were irrelevant. How did you prepare? What did you see? What did you smell? What did you feel? What did you eat? How did you train? What did you do the night before? The week before? At the end of that thinking process – and writing down all the factors that contributed to the good performance – we were able to formulate what Sandy termed our individual IPS, or Ideal Performance State. If you did those little things each week, Sandy believed, you would hopefully be in the IPS, the point from where you would give yourself the best possible chance at being able to re-create th
at good innings on each occasion.

  It took a while for me to develop my IPS, to become aware of all the little things I did before a game to prepare, and to understand the elements that got me into that ideal state. But it was something I worked at diligently because the prospect of being able to get myself into an ideal state to be able to play my best cricket was very attractive. I was young when I first heard Sandy talk about the IPS and was open to any new ideas. Straight away I became very conscious of what I ate and how I slept and gained a much greater awareness of all the little practices, both technical and mental, that I was employing in the lead-up to each match.

  For a number of years I allocated time to writing down my thoughts and routines. I took it a long way and began writing down everything: how I looked, how I felt, what I saw, what I had for lunch – anything I could think of that would help me get into that IPS.

  HOW AM I GOING TO COPE WITH HUMIDITY – WET, GRASSY PITCH?