How do you get out of a bad patch of form?

If you’re experiencing a run of low scores, you may need to go back to the drawing board…

Get a piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle of the page. On the left side of the page, write down all the things you’re currently thinking about before you bat and when you bat. Write down all the things you’re doing before you bat and while you bat.

Now, on the other side of the page, write down all of the things you do and think when you’re scoring runs and batting well.

Here’s an example of what your page might look like:

If this looks similar to what you have written down, you should know you’re not alone. These are common thoughts to have in both scenarios.

So, how can you combat these negative thoughts?

Physical

Is your current fitness level contributing to these negative thoughts? Are you tired when you bat because you’ve just bowled 10 overs earlier in the day?

If the answer is yes, we need to address that.

Some ideas to improve your fitness:

Match fitness will come as a result of regular match play, so it might be expected early in the season to fatigue quickly.

Fartlek sessions:

Choose a relevant distance to run eg 20-30m. Do 20-30 sprints over that distance with a 10 second rest in between.

Over that same distance, run the distance and back five times and take a 90 sec rest in between. Do 10 sets of this.

Bronco run three times.

By ensuring you are doing some physical fitness work early in the week (Monday & Wednesday for example), you’re giving yourself a better chance of being able to handle the rigours of a day of cricket.

Technical

Are you getting out in a similar way?

If you’re struggling to play the swinging ball and have been caught behind the wicket more regularly then you’d like, you need to work on this in training.

If you have access to a bowling machine, you can set it up to replicate the type of delivery that is getting you out.

Ideally, you need to be tweaking your instinctive response which is getting you out, so in order to do this, you may need to reduce the speed of the delivery to something that is more comfortable and that allows you to get into a better position with your head and hands in order to get a better outcome.

Once you groove the new body position, you should increase the speed of the delivery so that you’re putting yourself under more pressure to execute the stroke. The closer you get to match intensity with your training, the better chance you have of changing the outcome to a better one in the middle.

If you don’t have access to a bowling machine, you could use tape on one side of the ball to encourage it to swing and get your best bowler/thrower to target the area of improvement. The more consistent the throw, the better the session will be for you.

Tactical

Are you struggling to score against a particular type of bowler?

You may need to look into improving the execution of a stroke you currently play (eg sweep), or you may even need to look into developing a new stroke (eg reverse-sweep).

If you’re struggling to score against good quality spin bowling, you could look at using your feet eg getting to the ball before it pitches when it’s full of a length or getting as deep as you can in your crease when it’s short so that you can play more horizontal bat strokes which can typically generate more power than vertical bat strokes.

By developing these strokes in the nets each session and building up your level of confidence with them, you’re giving yourself a better chance of success in the game.

Do you have access to video footage of the opposition?

Some clubs now share their matches on YouTube.

This is a great addition to match coverage for us batsmen because it allows us to watch opposition bowlers and see how they bowl to certain batsmen.

That gives us the opportunity to understand their strengths and weaknesses and most importantly their tactics.

By writing down each bowler’s strengths, how they’re likely to get you out, you can begin to think about how you can play their best ball and what you can do to manipulate the bowler into bowling their worst ball, which allows you to capitalise on.

Once you’ve built this scoring plan against each bowler, you can then go about visualising it so that it seeps into your subconscious and starts to permeate and help to increase your confidence against a particular bowler or bowling attack.

Mental

A consistent run of low scores can really hit your confidence hard.

If this happens, we can sometimes catastrophise things in our own mind and think things are worse than what they are in reality.

You should debrief after each innings and understand what factors led to your dismissal (eg technical, tactical, mental or physical).

By doing this, you will have a good idea of what you’re doing wrong.

If it is a mental error that you’re making, here are a few ways that you can take charge and make some changes.

Review your weekly routine and identify any areas that could be better.

Are you managing your stress effectively?

Sometimes we can overemphasize the importance of scoring runs on the weekend and work ourselves up into a state of anxiety about our performance.

Meditation is a good way to reset your nervous system every day so that the heavy feelings of pressure about your performance don’t compound negatively.

In summary, by taking these types of actions each week, you’re going to eventually minimise and ideally remove the thoughts you’ve written down on the left side of the page up above and start to experience more of the thoughts on the right.

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