Bangladeshi cricketers need to prevent the tricks played by the brains when chips are down in order to perform to their ability, said Australian performance psychologist Phil Jauncey on Sunday. Jauncey, who arrived late on Saturday on a short visit, spent a busy day at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, conducting a session attended by all the national team members including the coaching staff.
He will have another session with them today to sign off his tour.
‘What I tried to explain is that you don’t need to feel good to act good but when you act good you feel good,’ Jauncey told reporters after the session.
‘So, what we are working through is that there are times when our brain tries to play tricks on us, so under pressure my brain actually tries to con us to make it worse,’ he said.
‘If I am a batsman, when I feel good I tend to lean towards the bowler. When I feel bad I lean towards the keeper, so what I need to do is when I feel bad, keep leaning towards the bowler,’
Jauncey had several individual sessions with the players once they joined the skill training session at the centre wicket of the SBNS trying to impart his experience among them.
The Tigers had quite a similar session in April when the Bangladesh Cricket Board hired Canada-based sports psychologist, Ali Azhar Khan.
Jauncey is currently working as the sports psychologist of the Australian baseball team and the Queensland Bulls cricket team. He was the mental skills coach of the Brisbane Lions AFL team from 1994 until 2008 and sports psychologist with the Brisbane Broncos NRL team from 1993 for 15 years.
He is also an on-call advisor with the Queensland Academy of Sport and Australian Institute of Sport, and has worked with various international athletes.
He was also a psychological consultant of the Australian cricket team between 1996 and 2008.
A veteran in Australian sports, Jauncey has recently worked with Australian Davis Cup squad.
Jauncey said that he wanted the players’ brain into computer mode so that they can stick to their game plan despite the bad results.
‘The brain we want to keep it in a computer mode,’ he said.
‘The players have to understand themselves, so that every player when they play, they play adequately. When players have a bad game, they know what to do, they have the ability to do it, yet they cannot act,’ said Jauncey.
‘We spoke about plan A what works for me, for instance when the batsman is leaning towards the batsman.
‘What we have to understand is that any time we are under the pump, our brain is trying to con us. So, we need to stick to plan A. So, I hope every player knows what their A’s are,’ he said.
The Australian added that though there is a language barrier, he is still hopeful that he will be able to make some impact on the players mind.
‘The concept, however, is very simple. Being nervous is not a problem. It’s acting nervously is the problem.’
-With New Age input
