Can’t Let Go of a Mistake? Here’s What to Do

So it’s been a couple of weeks since the first episode. What have you been up to?

Not a great deal, to be honest with you. Just sort of surviving January, working, doing a few nice social bits and actually getting into bed early and reading.

I think I’ve probably read four books this year so far.

Wow, that’s impressive.

Yeah.

What kind of books?

A mixture. Sports ones, of course. Bob Rotella Golf is not a game of Perfect as you recommended. Phenomenal.

That’s all right. You like it?

Phenomenal. Really good book.

And then I’m just on the Rackets by Conan island, which is about what it’s like to be a tennis player trying to make it to the very top, but isn’t quite there.

Right.

Yeah, it’s been interesting. What about you?

Well, believe it or not, it’s coming up to Cricket Mind’s first birthday.

Oh, yeah? When’s that?

Sometime in February — I’ll have to make up a date. So I’ve been tweaking the website and giving it a bit of a facelift, so that’s taken a lot of my time.

And staring at a computer screen for hours on end, which isn’t my idea of fun, Briony, but it needs to be done.

But I have managed to do some consultations which I always enjoy with a variety of people, the youngest being 12 and the least youngest being my age, believe it or not. So not so young. But he’s very passionate about the game, so that’s good. And then yesterday I went to a Lancashire reunion which comprised of a.

Well, it comprised of a couple of players and a few of the management team from the 90s. So we had a good reminisce and also a little bit of a chuckle about the new Manchester Giants logo. Oh.

So for those who don’t know, the Manchester Originals and been rebranded as the Manchester Giants and the logo is an elephant, believe it or not. Have you seen it?

I have seen it. I’ve seen an elephant. The elephant, yeah.

Do you like it?

It’s not really my taste, but I don’t know that it could have been, you know, I’m not really sure there’s a design I would have loved.

Yeah, well, we probably shouldn’t get into that. That’s probably for another podcast, so shall we get into the show?

Yeah, okay, let’s.

Okay. Welcome to episode two of the Cricket Mind podcast. I’m Nathan Wood.

And I’m Briony Brock.

And it turns out, Briony, that we did have a few listeners tune in for the first episode and we’ve also had some questions sent in, so I think that might be a pretty good place to start.

Yeah.

So the first question is from Zane in lovely Hertfordshire and his question is this. You talked a lot about mindset versus technique.

How do I know when I actually need to work on my mindset rather than just fixing something technically? So, Briony, what do you think?

Good question, Zane. I’d say it’s a very common confusion at all levels of the game actually.

You think when we watch England play, some people are quite quick to criticise the technique of some. Some people are quite quick to criticise the kind of mindset side.

I guess the most simple way to tell is if you can do the skill, you know, if you can do it in training, if you can do it in the nets, then it’s probably not going to be a technique issue because a technique issue will be something that you see everywhere from nets to drills to friendlies to high pressure games. It’s going to be present across all of those.

But it’s when you can do a shot or you can do something, you can execute a technique, but then when you’re under pressure, you suddenly can’t anymore. That’s when it might more likely be mindset attention or decision making even.

And they don’t have to be exclusive, do they? It’s not a case of, right, I need to work on my technique now. Now I need to work on mindset. It often works best when they’re kind of interrelated.

I think I would say to Zane, actually, mindset work and skill work is something that you do continuously.

Yeah.

And together.

Absolutely.

Yeah. What’s the next question, Briony?

So this is from Mark Davis, a club coach in Solihull.

Okay.

How can coaches help players think for themselves rather than constantly telling them what to do?

Okay, so I think that relates to that ITC quote from Steve Bull. Who’s that? Former England cricket psychologist. And for those who didn’t listen to episode one, why not? First question.

But ITC stands for Independent Thinking Cricketers. So how do you create ITCs? Well, I guess in simple terms you need to try and let the player kind of work things out for themselves.

So I would say that your primary job as a coach is to provide a problem to your players and the player’s job is to come up with a solution to that problem. So what would be an example? You’ve got a batter who’s been struggling with balls pitching on a leg stump line.

For me, it’s the coach’s job then to Present that problem to the batter by delivering balls on a leg stump line. And then the key, I think, is to give that player the space and the time to develop a method for dealing with that problem. Because.

And I think this is where actually it’s good for coaches to put their ego away.

You know, often that method that a player comes up with, you know, it can be a better way of doing it than the method or technique that you were gonna suggest. Because, let’s be honest, the best players aren’t the ones who remember instructions, parrot style.

The best ones are the ones who can read situations and kind of adapt to those situations in the moment. Is that fair?

Yeah, I would agree with that. 100. Yeah.

Peter Moore’s the Notts coach and ex England coach. In fact, he did two stints with England and he. But a brilliant county coach, a brilliant coach of, you know, developing players.

He used to talk about coach, coach, the intention, which basically means agree with the player what they need to get better at, and then support and guide that player whilst they’re trying to figure out their best way of getting better at that particular skill thing. That’s a pretty good philosophy, to be honest.

Yeah. And I think you’ve got to, as a coach as well, try and understand what’s going on in the player’s head as well.

It’s very easy to, like, say, do this, do that, but I mean, it quite. They might not understand how you’re saying it, or their body might not move like that or that.

You know, it’s kind of got to be a bit collaborative, 100%.

And it’s. It’s such an individual thing.

I mean, obviously there’s some things which are fundamental in human movement and, you know, technique, but they’re less than what a lot of people believe. And within that, you’ve got preferences. I mean, individual preferences.

Yeah.

I hope that’s answered. Is it Mark? Mark’s question? Okay. Right. And the final question, because we’ve only had three, but it’s just that.

Yeah.

The final question comes from Sonia, although I don’t know where Sonja is from. And her question is, even though my daughter practices regularly and prepares meticulously, she still overthinks things during games.

Is this normal and is it a problem?

Good question, Sonia. It is normal. Yeah, absolutely. But no, it’s not automatically a problem. Preparing meticulously and overthinking probably come from the same place.

You know, she really cares about it and wants to do really well. So it sort of makes sense that those two would go Hand in hand. I wouldn’t say the thinking was the problem, but more about when it maybe shows up.

So it can be useful before a game to be thinking, you know, to be thinking quite carefully about things to help you prepare. Even between overs, it might be useful, but maybe it’s not so useful when the bowler’s running in right at you.

You know, that’s probably not when you want to be thinking as much.

And often when we are thinking in those situations, it’s because we may be a bit scared that we might fail and, and we kind of really want to control the outcome of the game rather than trusting ourselves and trusting our preparation.

So I think in your situation, Sonia, I wouldn’t be thinking about how your daughter can stop overthinking, but more, how can she be supported to trust herself under pressure?

Because I think if she can trust herself under those pressure situations, trust that all that meticulous preparation has been put in at the right time and in the right way, then that overthinking should naturally fall away a little bit.

Brilliant. Okay, well, thanks to Zane, Mark and Sonia for sending in those questions. Thought they were excellent.

How can people send in their questions, Nathan?

That is a very good question, Briony, so well, do please keep them coming in. Well, you can send them in however you want, actually. So that’s whether that’s the website, an email, Instagram, any social platform, media platform.

We’re on most of them. What we’ll do, Briony. So listen, if you do want to send listeners. Probably true, actually, listeners.

If you do want to send in a question and need those details, we’ll put them in the show notes so you can find them there.

Okay, so we’re going to discuss resilience today and it’s something we talk about in cricket quite a lot actually, usually after something’s gone wrong, but we rarely stop and ask what resilience is. So, Briony, when you talk about resilience in cricket, what are you going on about? What are you talking about?

Well, I think I was trying to think of metaphors to help explain it because I think that can be useful sometimes. And I think we get all confused with strength and resilience.

And I think if you think of strength as armor, so it’s hard, it’s tough, it’s protective, it stops you getting hurt, but it’s really rigid and it’s not very adaptable or flexible. Whereas I see resilience as more like a kit bag.

So you might have a helmet, gym bags, bits of protective equipment in there and you can choose what you need based on the situation. So it’s that sort of ability to adapt and recover and use the tools that you have to move through things.

It’s sort of where, where the armor reduces the impact. It, the resilience is about adapting and coping with the, with the impact and really just how we respond under stress over the longer term.

So that is really quite interesting because I have this quote or this kind of, these terms that I use about mental toughness, because I don’t actually like the term mental toughness. I think it’s a bit unhelpful for me.

It kind of conjures up that armor imagery, you know, rigidness and, you know, when it comes to resilience about bottling up emotions and not processing these emotions.

I’ve known so many players who’ve kind of been labeled as mentally tough, and yet a significant proportion of, of those have had some kind of mental breakdown.

Yeah.

At some point.

And if you, if you kind of couple this with the tragic number of suicides that have happened in professional cricket over a long period of time, then I actually think that term is potentially dangerous. So I, I, I prefer a term like emotional adaptability. So, so I use that to compare it to trees.

And, and the, you know, in this case, mental toughness is represented by a mighty oak tree and emotional adaptability by, you know, a weeping willow. And the way I try and explain it badly most of the time is that the, the oak tree looks tough, looks strong, and it, and it is, it is both of these.

But in a strong enough storm, that mighty oak, at some point it’ll break because of that rigidness.

Yeah.

Whereas the flexible kind of willow tree, it’ll bend and sway in the storm and it’ll always bounce back no matter how strong the storm is. So. Yeah, very interesting. I do like that.

And they actually, they make buildings like that now, don’t they?

They used to make them so that they were, like, really solid and strong and then when they would all fall down if there was an earthquake or something. So now they make them where they have that bit of flexibility within them because it actually makes them able to withstand more kind of trauma.

And I guess, I guess resilience isn’t pretending something.

No.

Hasn’t affected you. It’s kind of feeling it, dealing with it, moving on.

Yeah, it was pretty. It’s as simple as that, really.

Okay, so in the last episode.

Yeah.

In episode one. Tune in if you haven’t. I think you said that we often see the appearance of strength rather than actual resilience. What did you mean by that?

So when we suppress our emotions to appear strong or tough, it can often look really calm from the outside, and we can often go, oh, they look like they’re okay. It doesn’t bother them. They’re unfazed. They might not look upset, they might not shut down. They keep their heads down.

They maybe don’t get angry or withdraw. They just sort of crack on.

But suppressing our emotions increases our stress overall, and it leaks out later, like you said, down the line with mental health challenges. But it also stops us being able to make decisions as effectively.

You’re using all your energy to hold things inside and keep them all tightly squashed so you don’t have as much energy to stay present and make those good decisions. And so I think we. We see.

We saw that maybe a little bit in the Ashes with the way that England, you know, it’s fine, it’s fine, we’re fine, everything’s fine. And it’s like, it’s okay to admit that you’re really disappointed that you got, you know, you got a pair in your first Ashes test. Like, that’s.

It’s okay to admit that. And that doesn’t mean you’re not strong or anything like that. But it’s all this, no, we can still win. We’re fine. We’re fine. That.

That appearance of strength, that kind of undermines that adaptability that resilience provides.

Why do you think we value that kind of appearance so much? And do you think it’s a cultural thing? Is it something peculiar to, you know, England and stoicism or. What’s your thoughts?

Well, there is the whole kind of stiff upper lip thing, isn’t it? Like, you know, must just look, okay, pretend we’re fine if someone asks how we are. Yeah, I’m fine. Even if you’re not.

I think there’s also probably a bit of a gendered element, not biologically, but socially.

We ingrain that men should be tough and should be strong, and from a young age, we don’t necessarily kind of socialize them away from those core skills. Whereas it’s sort of more socially acceptable, even at five years old, for a girl to cry. And for boys, it’s still.

They don’t always get the same response as if it was. If it was a girl. So I think that probably doesn’t help either. But, yeah, it does seem. It does seem a bit like a cultural. A cultural thing.

I mean, I think. Was it Indian? The Indian Women, when they won the World cup, you definitely saw emotions and expressions of emotions.

And so, so it could be, yeah, could be definitely that stiff upper lip Englishness. That’s not helping.

Yeah.

So you mentioned, you know, boys and girls, in your experience, do you think they learn resilience differently or is that, you know, is it that we’re just teaching them differently?

I think they’re kind of socialized differently and I’ve seen it when I’ve worked in schools, you know, a five year old boy who’s upset, it’s more like, ugh, you know, there’s more frustration from the adult potentially. I mean these are trends.

They’re not sort of for everybody, not rules and girls, there seems to be generally a little bit more sympathy when they, when they feel emotions.

I think it’s kind of, it’s sort of ironic in a way because the skills that build resilience are the feeling, are the crying, are the processing and, and girls generally, they, they talk more about their emotions. We, we seek social support earlier on and we tend to recover in relation to others.

Whereas boys, again, there’s that reinforced stoicism, learn suppression as a coping strategy or outlets. And I think the research shows that they seek help much, much later on, if at all. It’s when crisis is there, it’s rather than an earlier stage.

So again, it’s a trend, not a rule, but I think it’s definitely socially reinforced, which isn’t necessarily helpful.

What’s going through my mind now as you were talking about that was so my old boss at England Cricket, guy called John Neal, he used to really be a big advocate of female coaches coaching in the men’s game.

How interesting. Okay.

And actually when you were talking about that, that, you know, we, that boys, men, they do tend to kind of bottle things up and not share actually, you know, it might be onto something there in so much as if you’ve got a female leader, she could actually create an environment that helps with that because it’s an interesting one. It’s not an interesting one.

I guess I probably understand it because of the history of the game, but there’s lots of male coaches coaching female professional teams, but not the other way around. But it might actually work pretty well, I think.

I think it could, yeah.

And I think, I think sometimes, I mean, I’m not a man, so I don’t really know from personal experience, but it seems like men might be more comfortable speaking to women.

You know, if they see a doctor or they used to seeing women in caring roles, they may feel naturally more able to talk about things with them versus the sort of natural kind of comparison, I guess, with a man, you know, you don’t want to kind of lose face or. Or that kind of thing, but fear of judgment, maybe.

Do you think resilience is something you’re born with, or do you think you can learn and develop it?

Oh, 100% you can learn and develop it. I think it’s essentially a collection of skills, and in my head, it’s kind of five core skills.

Some of us are born into environments where it is not taught to us, just like any other skill. Some of us are born in bilingual homes with one French parent, one English parent. We will be bilingual. That’s lucky for us. Some of us won’t.

And we’ll have to really grind if we want to be bilingual. And I think it’s similar with something like resilience.

If you’re in an environment where your parents kind of naturally or consciously teach you resilience, then. Then you will have it. But.

But you also might not get so lucky, and you might have to reflect and learn it later on and build on those skills yourself. So I think, yeah, some of us are luckier than others, and. But anyone can learn it, definitely.

And how can coaches or parents tell the difference between a player who’s struggling and a player who’s actually going through that process of learning how to recover, how to build resilience? How do they see the difference?

Well, I think. I think it’s about the recovery for me. So resilience comes the more times that we recover from discomfort or stress.

You know, the more that we feel something, we experience it, we find ways to cope and we recover. That, to me, is that resilience process.

If we’re avoiding, if we’re suppressing, if we’re continually, like, dysregulating or stepping away or walking away or continually not recovering, then that would be a sign that they needed some help there.

Okay, so is this a fair statement that the problem isn’t emotion? The problem is unprocessed emotion?

Absolutely. That’s the nail on the head. Yeah.

Okay. And I think you said that resilience is a skill. It’s not a personality trait or anything like that.

Yeah, I think it’s a skill, but it’s also. It’s kind of a few skills together. So I would put it to kind of five skills. So emotional awareness.

So recognizing and knowing what you’re feeling in a given moment. You know, I’m disappointed in myself. Disappointed. Like, it’s okay.

It’s expressing it, so it’s being able to say it out loud, write it down, something like that. It’s recovering from it.

So refocusing breathing routines, those sorts of things, perspective, so zooming out a little bit and forgiving yourself for those mistakes. They’re not the end of the world. And then it’s support, it’s knowing who to lean on and when. And for me, it’s those.

Those are the kind of the five pillars, I guess, of. Of like your resilience kit bag. And if you’ve got. If you’re able to do those five things, then. Then you’ll be able to kind of adapt and recover. And.

And it’s not just cricket as well. Like, that’s the thing. I think that’s what makes me so passionate about resilience. Is it? It really is.

Every time you don’t recover from something, whenever you’re limiting your life, you know, we’re all going to have things that disappoint us or face rejection or, you know, all things feel out of control. And being able to adapt and bounce back and be resilient makes life so much bigger and greater.

So let’s say somebody has a. Let’s. Let’s stick with cricket, because this is the Cricket Mind podcast. But somebody has a stinker of a game.

Yeah.

Well, actually, let’s take it over a period of games. So somebody is.

Is, let’s say, a bowler and they’ve got into the habit of bowling wide balls, you know, and they’ve got it in their mind and they’re struggling with this. In terms of building resilience, is it best to kind of get back on the horse as quickly as possible, keep on the horse?

Or is it, you know, should you take a bit of time out from the game and just let things settle? Where. Where are you with that?

Well, it depends how kind of where it’s coming from.

You know, if it’s one game and they are like in the nets, that they’re fine, for example, it’s not a technical concern, then I think you really want to be encouraging them to. They’re bowling a wide and you want to be encouraging them to recover in the game and build and work through it that way.

I would not often encourage stepping away altogether. Yeah, I guess it’s what you think that’s going to offer you if there’s a genuine technical or physical issue that you need to address. But.

But we do see it, don’t we? I mean, with some people we work with, they just they kind of decide to stop bowling.

And the quickest way to not get better at bowling is probably by not bowling.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So yes, and that is usually stepping away is usually a fear driven choice. And, and this is the thing with resilience versus kind of toughness as well.

That appearance of, of toughness is, is often stepping away from things and it can provide that relief. And when you feel relief, you think, oh, I must have made the right decision then because I feel so.

Yeah, but actually in, it’s sort of an illusion of relief and in the longer term you’ve just limited yourself. You just stop bowling now.

Yeah.

Next time are you going to just quick, quick it all together?

Yeah.

You know, so it’s, it’s recognizing the bigger picture as well.

Yeah, makes perfect sense that. So if resilience is about recovery, what can coaches or parents actually do to help build it?

I think so. I think with parents like, I mean with coaches, start with coaches like Mark’s question. I think curiosity and reflection really helps.

And again, I think it helps if coaches park their ego a little bit because you feel like as a coach you’re needing to add value. You’re needing to say, oh, your arm wasn’t quite high enough or all this.

So you’re saying to the world, oh, look, I’m a good coach, I notice these things, I can fix them. But actually if you’re working with somebody who’s dropped their form on their bowling, what feels different? You know, something feeling different.

And then if they bowl a good ball, what happened there? Like, what did you notice? What do you feel in yourself?

Really encouraging them to tune into themselves as much as they can because you’re not going to be there on the field with them. They need to be able to adapt and kind of tune into themselves.

And I think also recognizing as a coach, particularly if you’re a team manager or something, is just because someone is quite quiet doesn’t mean that they are. You know, if they get out and they’re far and they’re quiet, that doesn’t mean they’re tough.

And if they get out and they cry, that doesn’t mean they’re weak. So it’s, it’s trying not to project those notions onto them either and really praising the ability to recover.

You know, the child who’s got two ducks in a row and then it’s gone out and opened again. And given it them all like that, given it that all, you know, that ability to keep going is the bit that you want to praise rather than the stoicism.

So going back a while now and I’m.

Oh, well, I reckon it’s probably, I don’t know, 12 years ago, perhaps, but Carol Dweck brought out the Growth Mindset book and ECB coach development at the time. I wasn’t involved at this moment, but I was going through the courses.

They, they latched onto that with, you know, telling coaches about growth mindsets and fixed mindsets. Does that still stand? Are you a fan of that?

Do you want to explain to the listeners or viewers what it is and, you know, is there any kind of relevance?

I mean, I’m a fan of it, like, conceptually, I don’t know. You’re better place probably to say how it was, like, presented from the ECB perspective, because I’ve only read it from a research perspective.

Perspective. So how are they talking about it in a coaching perspective?

Well, a lot about language. So. So, so first, the premise would be that, you know, if you’ve got a.

A fixed mindset, it basically means that you, you know, you think you’ve got a certain amount of talent and you can’t push through that. Whereas a fixed mindset, a growth mindset is about. You might not be there at the moment, but as a coach, you can help somebody kind of ex.

Well, higher that ceiling, actually, by using languages. Not yet, I think was the, the phrase, you know, you’re not there yet, but you will be. They were the things. I mean, it’s a long time. Yeah, and it did.

But, yeah, they’re the things that stood out for me.

Yeah. And I would see, say, say those things still. Still apply, you know, why are you putting limits on yourself? It’s.

It’s not particularly helpful, but it’s difficult because it’s done subliminally, I think, sometimes, particularly on younger cricketers. You know, they’re a bowler, they’re a batter, blah, blah, blah. I think maybe things are getting better, giving people more opportunities for longer.

But yeah, I would agree.

Encouraging that sense that the sky is the limit and if you keep trying, you know, you’re not failing, you’re just trying, you’re just pushing that ceiling. Because I think those fixed mindsets are ones where people do tend to be scared to fail a bit more.

So would you say it’s important to almost normalize the struggle that players go through as part of their cricketing journey and also that journey towards becoming a better player?

Yeah, 100%. And I think coaches can do this and actually parents as well.

How your modeling of your response and Your emotions teaches so much by example, especially when you’re with younger, you know, as, as they are younger, admitting that you feel frustrated or disappointed or things like, you know, I had a friend last year, he’s a, he’s a coach and he got a few very low scores in a row. So opening bats and you know, if you’re just in the training session and you say, oh, such a bad day on Saturday, guys, I’m gutted.

Like it just normalizes the frustration. You don’t have to pretend that you’re okay because you care about the game.

So it’s completely normal and okay to be disappointed, but it’s creating an environment where people feel okay to do that. And actually you asked about what parents can do and I think children spend a lot more time with their parents so they have more potential impact.

But one thing that we see, and I was speaking to a teacher about this recently, is we try and protect people’s emotions and we try and soften the blow. So if someone’s upset, oh, don’t worry, it didn’t really matter. Oh, don’t worry, it’s just a game. Don’t be silly. There’s no need to cry.

Like, and all of those things just invalidate those feelings. And actually they can cause quite long term problems because then that child is going up. I’m really upset, but I’m being told I shouldn’t be upset.

Are they wrong? Am I wrong? And it’s really confusing. So instead we ideally would try again with a bit more curiosity. That looks really tough.

Do you want to talk or do you want some space? You know, is there anything that would help you right now? What do you need?

You know, letting people feel the emotions that they feel rather than sort of subconsciously invalidating them by making, trying to make them feel okay. It’s, it’s sort of, yeah, it’s, it’s best in. It’s well intentioned. 100%. You can see it’s well intentioned, but it’s, it’s harmful.

Absolutely. I mean all parents want their best for their. Yeah, kids don’t they? In no matter what they do.

But yeah, I mean from a coach’s perspective, I think it’s not helpful if they kind of rush to rescue all the time. You know, they, they don’t overanalyze straight after a game.

You know, they kind of let the emotions of the child settle before kind of talking about their performance.

I think as maybe a simple rule that I’ve kind of developed over you know, a period of time working with parents and coaches, it kind of connects first, later. Is it. Are you on board with that kind of philosophy?

Yeah. And I think they matter more in the situation than you do. Understand what they’re going through, what they’re feeling right now.

You might be desperate to tell them that they had hit the wrong shot, but I think they could probably wait.

I don’t know whether this is connected, actually, Briony, but it’s definitely to do with. What’s the phrase. So connecting self worth to performance.

Now, I don’t know how this ties into resilience, but again, when we were just talking about parents and stuff, I don’t know where I got this from. It might have been an ECB course, it might have been a TED Talk, I don’t know.

But the advice was kind of, as a parent, try not to discuss performance too soon after the event, because the child can connect your emotion as a parent with their performance. So I’ll give you an example, as a personal example.

You know, if I came back, the lad, you know, after a game and let’s say I’d scored a hundred on the rare occasions that I did and I walked in and, you know, Mum and Dad, who loved me very much, had obviously asked, how did he go? And I’d say, I scored a hundred. Scored a hundred. And I could see in their eyes and be like, well, that’s fantastic news. You know, brilliant.

You know, obviously not. Not get the champagne out. But, you know, it was a celebratory.

Yeah.

Moment. But conversely, on the times when I didn’t do so well and they, I came in and they’d say, how do you. How did you do?

And I, I tell them, like, I sensed anyway that I could see a little bit of disappointment in their eyes. I don’t know whether that was me or, or if. If it was true.

But over a period of time, I learned to associate, kind of coming back and looking forward to telling them good news about my performance, but not so good, actually, about telling them that I didn’t do so well. Does that tie into resilience or is that a completely different.

No, it does a bit. And it can be so, so hard because, as you say, parents just want the best for their child and they’re human as well.

And chances are they’re probably quite competitive and really invested, especially in a sport like cricket. But it’s so hard for the child then because they. If you’d have got out for a duck, you’d probably already be seriously disappointed.

And then when you tell them and see their faces. It’s like double disappointment and it’s really, really hard. But then you’ll know as a parent, how do you park that? You know, it’s. I mean, it sounds.

From what we’ve talked about previously, it sounds like you’ve tried quite hard to park that sense of your opinion on it or whatever, but it can be so hard to do that.

But it does affect their resilience because sometimes we see players who get very angry when they get out, and that can be because they feel that their identity is threatened. And so it’s sort of like a bodyguard emotion. Anger. It’s like a bodyguard. It comes up.

There’s like a bit of a vulnerability there, and it comes up to fight and defend it. And it’s sort of a similar thing.

It’s like you see yourself as this good cricketer or this competent batter, and then something happens to make you think that’s not that. And then your whole identity gets rocked a little bit. And. And if that’s happening out.

Out in the field and then you come home and it’s in your home as well, then you start to question, do they think I’m not very good either? And it. And it all becomes really tough.

And, I mean, it’s such a hard ask for parents, but really focusing on how the child feels like, did you have a nice.

Because sometimes, I mean, I think I remember, actually it was last season, a guy at my club, a good friend of mine in the men’s first team, I think he got 98. And I. And I saw him at the club and I was like, oh, how. How are you?

How.

How do you feel about Saturday? Or whatever. And he was. I’m thrilled. Like, so happy. And I was like, okay, cool.

But because it was 98, I know there’s a lot of people out there that would be gutted by 98. And I’ve seen children cry at 98, you know, and it’s actually quite an interesting question to ask people. Would you.

You know, how would you feel if you. 98. And a number of people would say, I don’t know if I’d ever play cricket again if I got out 98.

So it’s kind of trying to remain as objective as you can. How do they feel about their performance? Say, you say, nathan, how was your game on Saturday? And you say, great, I got 100. Then they go, oh, great.

Did it feel really great? Good. Then it’s sort of at least tied up a little bit with your interpretation. Whereas if they Say, how did you do?

And you go, I got out for a duck on a really bad umpire’s cool. Then they at least can. Can kind of relate to you in some level. Or I played a really bad shot. They can go, oh, how frustrating.

How are you feeling about it now? Or whatever. It’s sort of really trying to connect with how the player interprets it rather than planting your. I mean, not planting.

Projecting your own thoughts onto it.

Yeah, that is so true. In so much as. I mean, there are plenty of people, aren’t there, who. If you get 98, it’s like, oh, why didn’t you get 100?

And yet you probably take 98 before you start the day.

Well, exactly.

There’s also people who, you know, you get a hundred, and they go, why don’t you get 150? Or, you know, 100, 120 not out. So, and. And I get it, you know, the intention is trying to create, oh, well, I guess hunger, you know, in players. Graham Gooch used to talk about, you got to get daddy hundreds, daddy hundreds, you know, big hundreds. Is that helpful or.

I mean, it probably depends a bit on the level that we’re talking about, but I think there is this sense that it’s very unsatisfying.

You know, we work with people who want to play county and then they want to play national and professional, and there comes a time when you have to be a little bit satisfied, you know, be satisfied with your performance while still, you know, striving for more. So it’s really. It’s quite a fine balance to tread.

It’s important to enjoy the moment sometimes, isn’t it? Yeah, you know, and I don’t think I did, actually, and to my misfortune, because actually, we play the game for enjoyment, don’t we?

So, you know, cricket can be a brutal game, and there’s a lot of times when it doesn’t go your way. But when it does, actually, my advice to people now would be enjoy it.

Enjoy that moment, you know, and, you know, savor it, because there’s going to be plenty of times when you’re at the other end of the spectrum. Can you ever. Can you think. Talking about resilience, just in general terms, can you think of. Or do you think it’s possible actually to.

Because you mentioned that a lot of our. Well, a lot of people that we work with, they want to become professionals and they want to get to the top level.

Do you think it’s possible for a player to get to the top without being resilient.

I would say not to the. Not on. Controversial, not on merit. But some of the selection choices recently do not seem necessarily based on performance.

So in the traditional sense, I would say yes. To get to the very top, you surely have to be resilient, but that doesn’t mean they won’t pick a random person to come on tour who.

So, so, so. So are you referring to the England selection?

Yeah, probably a little bit. Just in the sense that it’s not necessarily done on. Yeah. Hasn’t always seemed. Some picks have felt like slightly left field, but predominantly, yes.

I think to get to the top, top, you’ve got to have resilience. Yeah. There’s no way otherwise cricket’s too humbling.

Yeah. That selection thing, it’s a fine balance, isn’t it?

Because, well, in the 80s and 90s, people would be giving one test and then chopped because they didn’t, you know, work out in that way. So that’s equally as bad.

But actually, like you said as well, sometimes they. They hang on, hang on, hang on. And then they break further down the line.

Yeah.

It leaks out later and you hear about the struggles that they’ve been going through all this time.

So sometimes it’s.

It’s.

It’s kinder, actually to take somebody out of the.

Oh, yeah.

Out of the fire. Yeah, yeah. Let’s talk about crying, because you.

You mentioned that earlier, we, you know, sometimes see a bit of tears, you know, when a young player is crying. What. What’s going on there?

So crying is more probably a lack of emotional regulation. So it’s like the feeling comes more quickly than they’re able to manage it. It’s like a wave and they can’t get out of the way.

And when we, like I said kind of before, when we say things like, oh, stop crying, don’t, don’t worry, calm down, you’re overreacting. Not teaching them to regulate. We’re kind of increasing the shame and the idea of put your emotions in a box and leave them somewhere else instead.

We want to be kind of name the emotion again and, yeah, like, you know, are you disappointed that you got out? Are you frustrated? You know, try and understand where.

What the actual emotion is and then try and help with that kind of reset and build and move on from it. And shame can be particularly unhelpful. And I think that’s something that you see if someone’s crying.

And then again, parents with the best intentions can say, if you keep crying like this, we’re not Going to be playing cricket anymore or no one else is crying. Why can’t you, you know, go and sit with the team? It’s shame, then. The shame is just one of the most ins.

You know, awful, awful emotions for somebody to have. To, have to sit with, particularly over a prolonged period. So it’s sort of.

If they can be taught to help regulate those, then, then it will get better. It will get better over time.

But actually, as I say, you know, if we, if we suppress, if we ignore, if we invalidate, then it’s going to become a real problem in the long run.

And going to the opposite end of the spectrum. Well, actually, I don’t know if it’s the opposite end of the spectrum, actually, but I’m going towards anger now. So we’ve gone from crying to.

To anger. Looking back, I would say that I tended to play at my best when I was angry. What’s going on there? Am I a bit peculiar in this regard?

No, I don’t think that’s uncommon perceived experience. Would it have been anger around. What would have been anger around yourself? Anger with yourself?

No, probably somebody else. You know, it could be, I’ve not been in the team, I’ll show him. Or it could be a sledge from an opposition.

In fact, towards the end of my career, I actually ended up starting looking for a bit of confrontation to get me fired up. But, but there is a school of thought that actually you don’t want to be angry because the emotion, you know, can become a bit uncontrollable.

You want to be calm. Where are you?

It just depends on the person. And I think we. Did you say that happened more in the back end of your career?

Well, I think I recognized it. Probably too late, actually.

But looking back as a, as a young boy, when I got angry, I think it focused my mind and it stopped me from thinking about this. But this bowl is good, or this is fast, or it’s turning a lot. I think it just focused me in, actually locked me in.

Yeah, I think it can.

And I think it can also, for some people who kind of need the game to mean something, to perform well, it can give them that reason, you know, like the, the Johnny Bairstow, Johnny Johnny Bairstow stumping, Stumping, run out, whatever you call it, that just gave them that extra fight that they didn’t have. And I think it can be helpful in doing that.

I think where it would be unhelpful is the anger after, you know, like the smashing up the dressing room, the throwing the bats, that kind of thing that we see. Did you. Were you ever guilty of that?

No, actually, no, I never did that. I know plenty of players who did, but it wasn’t my way of doing it.

Once out, I would go and take myself off and sit by myself and not talk to anybody. That was my way. I went quite internal, actually, which I don’t think is a healthy thing.

Well, yeah, it’s all sort of different ways of trying to cope with the feelings, isn’t it.

In terms of, you know, we. So we work with players on resilience and, you know, giving them some coping mechanisms. How. How long.

I mean, how long’s a piece of spring, piece of string? How long does resilience training take to, you know, show up? Haven’t have an effect?

Well, it can take some time, to be honest.

I wouldn’t expect to see much change immediately, but across the course of a season or two, you would definitely expect to see change, depending a bit on age as well and what things show up.

But over time, you would hope to see somebody who’s a bit more willing to face challenges, stays in the game a bit longer, seeks support, accepts feedback a little bit more. Just fewer kind of emotional spikes. The more times that they recover from setbacks, the quicker it will. It will. You’ll see the benefits of it.

The more we try and cushion it, you know, the more that. Who was it saying the other day? Happens quite a lot with people we work with.

They sort of open the batting, then they get a couple of ducks and then they get moved down to three and, oh, they’re really happy at three now and again. It’s like, could we maybe have worked through that? And the more we avoid, the more we kind of negate undermining that building of resilience.

But the more that we deal with the difficult stuff, which can happen quite a lot in cricket, as we know, the quicker that we can build it.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about my time with England cricket was we used to bring in experts from outside of cricket, actually, to talk to the cricket coaches.

And we used to bring in people from the military and they would talk about desensitization training, exposing people to uncomfortable situations, and over time, they would get used to it. Is that what you were talking about before, or is it something different?

Probably a bit less intense than that. Yeah, well, that would be a fast way to do it.

You’ve got Alsatians or, you know.

Yeah, but essentially, yeah, the more exposed you are to feeling tough things, the easy. Not only does it get easier because it’s more familiar. But also you. You’re like, oh, actually, that sucks.

But I can cope with it and I can be okay and I will be okay.

Can you go too far? Can it. Can you take somebody too much out of the comfort zone and it. And it actually has a detrimental effect?

Oh, definitely in the military.

Let’S say cricket context. So, yeah, I don’t know. Young player struggling a bit against fast bowling. And actually the coach goes, right, okay, Frog marches them into.

Into a net, let’s say, I don’t know, the players, 13 years old, and they whack it up to 70 miles an hour. Completely out of the comfort zone, don’t stand the chance they get hit. Is that kind of. Is that too much?

Can that have a detrimental effect, taking somebody too much to an extreme?

I think so. And I think that’s also sort of slightly abusive. I think it needs to be collaborative. I think you need high support, high challenge.

We’ve talked about before in a K environment. So the child has to be really on board with it. I have heard situations where the coach just kind of does it, which obviously, yeah, isn’t.

I think it needs to be collaborative. You need to have. You need to pick the moments. And if that’s what the child says, look, I really want to get better. Come on, I can do this.

And puts on a chest guard and all of the stuff and says, let’s do it, I think that’s fine. But because as you said as well, like, it’s meant to be fun and we’ve talked about maybe more sort of softer ways of building up that resilience.

You know, maybe having people bowl with incredible. Instead of a hard ball and stuff like that. I think that might be a kind of more soft way of doing it because there’s no need to.

You don’t need to be the finished product immediately. Like, it’s kind of supposed to be a process.

Definitely. And, you know, you’ve got my. My take on it is that you have to have the skill in place to be able to meet the demand.

Yes.

So a story that I used to. Well, it’s, you know, a story from a long time ago, from the 90s, actually. So old Trafford cricket ground.

In those days, we used to have a gym, obviously, still do have a gym, but it was in a different place. It was an indoor center.

And at that time, Sale Sharks, the rugby club, were changing their ground, having some kind of refurbishment, which meant that they were training at Old Trafford and they were using the. The Gym. So we’d kind of. They’d use a gym first thing in the morning. We’d follow them and look at these massive weights.

But as a result of that, there was a couple of times where we said, come on, we’ll get you into the nets.

Oh, yeah.

And these big, burly rugby players, they got all padded up and, you know, put. We put them on a machine. They’d never played the game before, but, you know, rugby players are tough, aren’t they? Now we cracked it up and they got.

They started getting hit and they were. They were scared. Yeah, they were. They. They were definitely apprehensive because they didn’t have the skill level to meet the demand.

And what it kind of taught me was actually that’s so important that it’s all right. Kind of, you know, ramping up to a certain point. But if you are completely swamped.

Yeah.

And you don’t have the skills in place to meet that demand, then actually, I’m not sure what good it did because they got no learning out of it. All they learned was a cricket ball hurts when it hits you.

Yeah.

When they didn’t have any kind of coping mechanism. So on that point about the Incrediballs, actually, I think that’s a really useful kind of area for people to explore that. You know, a lot of it is.

First of all, have you got the skill of being able to, you know, play against a fast moving ball?

And this is the thing, we see people starting hardball earlier and earlier and they bypass the fundamental technical skills that they need to be able to play it. If they, if they can’t even hold the bat properly and have a good setup, how on earth are they going to be able to.

Like when it’s a wind ball and a plastic bat that weighs nothing, when they’re tiny, how are they. How can you suddenly then expect them to be able to hit a hardball? And.

And I think there’s almost become a bit of a. I don’t know if it’s because the counties are starting hardball earlier or because of the way the leagues are structured, but it’s, It’s. They’re starting so young at 7 and 8. And you just think, really, are the tech. Other skills there or are we, Are we rushing the process?

You know, I’ve realized that I didn’t start the stopwatch. So listeners, you know, the first episode I put a stopwatch on, I’ve not done that. So I’ve no idea how long we’ve been going.

But looking at the time, I Think we maybe we need to kind of start bringing it to a close. From your perspective, Briony, have we covered resilience there? Is there any kind of area that we need to touch on?

Yeah, I think we have.

I think, I think what’s really key to remember resilience is like a fundamental life skill and it allows us to separate the things that happen from who we are. And so it allows us to kind of bend instead of break when these difficult things happen.

It’s so, so important and, and your environment around you and how, how people respond to that and hopefully some of our listeners are coaches or parents.

How you respond to that expression of emotion is so, so important in supporting that young or old player to, to develop the, the resilience that they need.

So in a nutshell, resilience isn’t how strong or tough you are, it’s about how you, or how well you recover from mistakes and disappointment and process emotions.

Yeah.

So feeling it, dealing with it, staying in the game, Is that fair?

100%. Yeah. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Yeah. Easy. Easier said than done.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Okay, so I think that’s a good place to wrap things up.

Yeah.

But before we go, we’ve had an idea for a topic to explore in a future episode and it comes from John Neal, the chap I mentioned earlier in the show, and he actually, bizarrely on that, he heads up coach development at Welsh Rugby now.

How interesting.

Yeah, is it a bit, isn’t it?

Anyway, he’d like to discuss, or us to discuss the differences between personality and character and how these kind of play out in cricket, whether you, you know, you play a coach or a leader within the game. So do you fancy exploring that?

Yeah, I think that sounds a great topic. Yeah.

Maybe we can get him on. Yeah, and just let him go. He can, you know, he can talk for hours. Couldn’t you? I hope he’s not listening.

All right, well, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll do that.

Perfect.

So on that, listeners, please do send in any suggested topics of your own, actually, that you’d like us to discuss in future episodes as well as any questions that you’d like us to answer. So I think it’s, I think we’ll call that a day. What did I say last time? Shall we call it stump? So we stick with that, Briony?

Yeah, so that stumps everybody.

Yeah. See you next time.