Rashid Latif Cricket Academy

Rashid Latif Cricket Academy :: Menu

Coaching tips by Rashid Latif

Building confidence in Young Cricketer:
All players are encouraged to make the muscles in their heads work as hard as they gym. A consistent finding in sports psychology research is that of the relationship between the levels of confidence and the levels success.

Preparing to be confident:
Building confidence is all part of good preparation. The off-Season provides an excellent time to make confidence more permanent. Confidence comes from quality practice and preparation and knowing that you have trained as hard as or harder than anyone else. In order to do this, it is important to develop inner strength and good levels of self-discipline.

Coaches should encourage players to:

Develop a good work ethic at all time.
Be aware of relative strengths and weaknesses.
Use goal setting-identification of where the player wants to get to and how to get there.
Carry out regular personal evolutions- not to be over critical, but to be aware of when and why practice has gone well, and what can be improved on.
Take responsibility for all their actions.
Never scared about Failure
Think positive.

Practical way to build confidence:

Make deposits in your “confidence bank”.
Write down your strengths and weaknesses (technical, tactical, physical, mental, skills). Keep this list and add to it over time.
Use mentally tough and confidence role model.
Look at role model within and out of cricket.ie. What makes them good/great?

Recalling your good performances:
Write down the details of all achievements when you have performed well and felt confident. It is important to recall the feelings associated with each performance (confidence etc.) and other details such as venue, opposition, what was good and why. Try to recall these positive performances in your mind as if you were watching them on TV.

Thinking through skills and situations:
This aids familiarity and builds confidence because you have met such issues and situations before. Its all about good preparation. Be in control. Confidence is one think that you can control-you choose how you talk to yourself whether it is positive or negative/ Tough and confident body language-look at the role models. Look at how different performers use body language to help the achieve their goals.

To conclude:
These are purely suggestions-different performers need different approaches due to their individuality. The key is to not to try all of these strategies at once. Try one idea at a time and see how it goes. Mental skills are like technical ones and they take time to develop.