“I would like to thank the support staff especially Mike Horn who joined us at the start of the tournament and was there for our last couple of games. He worked on the mental side and has helped us deal with the expectations and pressure” – Sachin Tendulkar
Apart from physical fitness and cricketing skill, an area of strength the Indian team seemed to display was that of being able to handle pressure and manage their own self-doubt. According to folklore, cricket is 90% a mental game. And this is backed by research in sports psychology that suggests psychological strength is equally or more important than physical strength.
No wonder Sachin Tendulkar and other team players acknowledged the work of Mike Horn, who coached them on the psychological aspects of the game. This was reflected even in small ways like Gambhir and Yuvraj’s self talk saying ‘come on’ to themselves (caught on camera) before every ball they batted or Dhoni’s calm yet strategic focus after losing two important wickets . Like somebody mentioned, “With a match like India v/s Sri-lanka, where both the teams are equally good, it ultimately boils down to which team can handle the pressure better’.
Studies conducted by Dr Rob Duffield at the Charles Sturt University, and Dr Marc Portus, the Sports Science Manager of Cricket Australia, have found that you do not need to be as physically fit to play cricket as you do other sports such as football. However you do need to be psychologically strong and have a level of endurance and recovery. “Physical conditioning and muscle training is not going to necessarily improve your performance in cricket,” Dr Duffield said. “Having a high oxygen consumption or a faster twenty metre sprint time doesn’t mean you are going to be able to bowl better, or get more wickets, or score a century. The key to being a good cricketer is the ability to tackle the psychological aspects of the game by the use of mental conditioning.”
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