One of the great success stories of Sri Lankan cricket is their coaches’ ability to think out of the box. Sri Lankan coaches have encouraged players with unorthodox styles and those players have gone on to become world beaters.
A study done by an Australian University recently showed that players such as Lasith Malinga, Muttiah Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya would have been over coached had they been in places like England or Australia and their natural talent would have never emerged.
Prior to the ongoing World Cup, the Sri Lankans made use of a psychologist to help their players. Englishman Jeremy Snape was brought back for the World Cup as well and he has helped the players to prepare for the challenges better.
Snape is a former England cricketer having played first class cricket for over 19 years and upon retirement he went on to complete a Masters Degree in Psychology.
“Psychology has been a huge part of cricket with the pressures and the expectations. Due to the television, it feels like there’s no hiding place as everything is being measured, everything’s being filmed and everything being analysed by all the former captains around the world. So it can feel a really pressurised place. Underneath all that, players still have their best game to play and part of my job is to strip away a lot of the noise on the outside and make them focus on just their best game,” Snape told ‘The Island’.
Watching television highlights we get to watch the wickets and boundaries. Snape has made the players realise that the moments that don’t fall into the highlights package are equally important. He calls those moments the ‘lowlights’.
“We tend to watch the television and watch the highlights which are the bowler running up and the batsman hitting a four. I am interested in the lowlights; the time between balls. As the bowler walks back to his mark what he is thinking. As he turns, what decision has he made? Is he really sure or is he in two minds. The batsman; can he take a risk or can he take a single? What does he do when he steps away to square leg? I am interested in those things because the lowlights make the highlights bright.”
One of the players who benefited immensely from Snape’s sessions was Dinesh Chandimal.
“Dinesh is a very talented player with lots of expectations and that can be a burden. We’ll know how good he can be but it’s about creating consistency. So if you want consistent performances, we need a consistent approach. If you want a consistent approach, you need a consistent thinking style. He’s been very good at working hard on a routine between balls where he thinks the same things. He asks himself the same question. What does the team need? How do I play according to my strengths? How do I stay calm for this next ball? All these things we worked one on one together. He worked very hard at it. Just like playing the pull shot or the cut shot, it’s a mental skill. It was great to see him playing so well against Australia. A real shame that he got injured and I think he would have won the game if not.”
Snape has told Sri Lankan players to have several options and then to choose one among those options. Preparation for him is as important as execution.
“First of all we have got a lot of options. Should I bowl a bouncer, a yorker, a slower ball? Should I change the field? Lots of decisions and then from that noise we need to pick one and be super focused on that one because if we are thinking about two or three, we’ll never get it right. We need to pick one and get 100 percent committed to it and then execute the skill.”
Snape believes that Kumar Sangakkara has one of the strongest mindset among contemporary cricketers.
“I’ve interviewed Kumar Sangakkara and Sanath Jayasuriya for the players and asked them about their thinking. I have got them to speak on their nerves and when they failed, when they built really strong innings and all that. So we have done it in a group over a team meal and the players have loved it. I asked the questions in English and the answers are in Sinhalese.
Snape had worked with South Africa for nearly three years. One of the questions that all cricket fans have is that why the Proteas choke during crunch games. “It’s a difficult one. It’s like the New Zealand All Blacks. For some time, they won everything but the World Cup. South Africa are a very strong side. They’ve been building a strong system for the last five years. They have got some really talented players so they are a very dangerous side.
