While time passing too quickly with T20I approaching in just a few days making team India dream of winning the prize money. And I thought that it is an excellent time to write about the psychology of the cricket, cricketers and the importance of being mentally prepared for what’s going to face in the mere future.
From a psychological point of view every sport is demanding as it demands a lot of mental strength. From sources it is mandatory for an athlete to have a minimum of 10-20% of mental ability is a requirement for an athlete to play.
Since every sport is mentally challenging one, what makes a player top is when he keeps a balance of his physical and mental state.
Cricket is a demanding game and it requires a lot of mental toughness to be precise. It needs a long mental health journey and it is quite reasonable to say that there is no other sport like cricket.
Let me explain it to you by breaking down the psychology of cricket.
Each game of cricket varies with its forms – say, ODI, tess series, world cup from 1 day to 5 days. As the game varies so does its intensity thus requiring a high level of mental toughness. The mental toughness of the cricketer will also have influence on the messed up dreams of the cricketers. It requires both mental and emotional toughness, majorly mental. Players will experience both positive and negative emotions. This mental strength separates each player from one another. Every team has one best player who is motivated , energetic, confident and focused as those players have already won the battles of their mental toughness and are at their peak level.
According to certain studies it has been proved that other than cricket every sport needs physically fit candidates whereas in cricket more than physical fitness they require high endurance level and psychologically fit individuals. With psychological level of perception the batsman can even predict the ball before they recieve it and also they can even predict where the ball will strike first or it will get a faulty one.
When one player in the team called the captain is asked to attain a certain level called a century. He undergoes a certain level of stress within him. Since the game itself is a complex one it tests every player’s mind and how he faces these tests makes him superior and pro in his field.
As we all know that psychology plays a dominating role in cricket and hence many coaches these days use this psychological counselling and practice sessions to boost and maintain confidence within them and perform well allowing them to work coordinately in such stressful conditions.
For the successful career of sport journey especially cricket one needs to focus on the 4C qualities which Include;
- Confidence
- Concentration
- Control
- Commitment
Confidence is one such thing which determines half of your success. If you have confidence in yourself then the victory is for sure going to be yours. And if you don’t , you’ll feel like you’re going to lose it and you’ll never achieve in reality as well.
Confidence is something which you should always wear, be it a cricket match or your day to day life. It is directly proportional to the self belief you have in yourself.
These days due to certain controllable factors such as the similarities between cricketers and it is proven that because of these certain cricketers fail in their journey and just to regulate and improve the confidence of the player confidence plays a vital role here. Self efficacy is the word I would like to describe where one believes in his or her own traits and capacities to execute certain tasks be it daily goal or a strongly driven success ladder. Passively self efficacy helps to develop deeper interest in certain activities you practise by making your mind actively forming a strong sense of commitment towards your goal.
Concentration is the other key factor necessary for the players who have set a goal in their mind. To be clear at the present moment of what needs to be done can be achieved by concentration. Though there are many circs which hinders the ability of the players to think, one who is concentrated will not face such difficulty. One word to describe concentration is to be remaining in the present. The longer you are present in the present world, your concentration will be greater. Though it may sound easy, it is not when it comes to following it. Sometimes certain thoughts can stay or there are possibilities for our mind to travel back in the past or think about the future. Let’s take an example here – if you’re batting and waiting for the ball, and in the meanwhile your mind digs up a memory of the past even in the middle of the match. But as previously mentioned, remaining in the present is the only way to practise concentration. Your concentration level should be at peak from the moment the bowler starts his run-up for bowling, the batsman should start concentrating till the point where he hits the ball.
For a bowler the concentration should start when you start bowling till it ceases.
And for a fielder the concentration should be active till the ball is dead.
Though it is quite natural that the level of concentration in the start of any match does not remain the same until it gets over. It follows a series of parallel emotions which fluctuates the concentration thereby losing it. The most common is during the middle of the game where the fatigue factor gets in. As it’s mentioned that fitness and a player’s mental physique plays a major role in improving concentration over time. Different sports require different types of concentration levels but what remains the same is being active in the present.
Control is a relative term in cricket but if used effectively can be beneficial. During certain matches it is seen that most of the cricketers lose their control and Mess up the game but if one has good control over his or her mind during such situations he can be at greater heights. It is quite reasonable that fluctuating stress levels are not always easy to cope up with but regular practice of control by putting oneself under different pressured conditions or situations might be effective to learn and adjust your level of control. Though control level will vary person to person but the inner heat can be cooled up by first recongonizing and then practicing to control it. A simple rule here is to make effective use of one’s emotion and can win battles.
Commitment is what we call as the final ingredient for a sportsman’s mental game. Every small or big goal can be achieved only if the commitment you make to yourself is strong. It requires a rigourous of mental toughness to stick onto the plan of achieving one’s goal. Every athelete has his or her own commitment and some are even naturally good at it. But what makes them unique is that they bring commitment and control together and set their goals on top. With this they become more committed and hence it makes them easy to acheive their goals.
Hence it is necessary for every player to focus on the 4C’s mentioned above to overcome and win every battle.