Darren Lehmann has said it. Steve Waugh too. So has Michael Clarke – they’re all preaching from the same book.
Hard work. Self-promoted hard work. Thinking for yourself. Endless hours of physical strength training, stretching, running, mental and physical technique repetition, fielding, bowling, catching, throwing.
To reach the point where you are untouchable.
There are some magnificent athletes running around in Australian cricket. At any given moment, on any given day, they are as physically capable as the entire England and Australian squads.
The extreme players always get their priorities right.
Don Bradman didn’t take whacks at some Pommie cricketer in a bar. Tiger Woods might have fallen foul of the female form, but he gave himself the best physical and mental respect so he could be ready for every tournament.
Right now he’s still in a non-confident place with his personal life – and that is to be expected.
Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Sachin Tendulkar, Geoff Boycott, Geoff Hunt, Michael Jordon, Kobe Bryant, Hank Aaron, Jack Nicklaus, Babe Dietrichsen, Serena Williams, Floyd Mayweather, Michael Phelps…I could go on forever.
These guys/gals were obsessed with perfection. Obsessed with every move they made on the playing field. Dogmatic about being in superb shape every time they stepped on the pitch. And cognisant of what happens to he who strays off the park.
They look after themselves, they respect family and friends, they dedicate their 20 years of struggle and physical and mental marathons to their bank manager, who makes them rich via the compounding process, and makes himself and his bank richer at the same time. It’s a total win-win.
To be James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Ian Bell, Graeme Swann takes 20 years of work. Some of it paid.
Some of it a matter of needing to do the work to get the brain muscle memory that is required.
There is fear. There is doubt. There is discipline. There is sacrifice. But there is positivity through hard work and smart work. And there is reward of all manner and kind.
They see work in relation to reward. The body beautiful is not as important as the body hard, ready to spring. The education of mind and body to be paid for something you love doing and have loved since you were a kid.
That urge, that drive to be better than the guy on the other side of the net, the guy with the ball in his hand – the same one that wants to knock your block off.
As spectators, we forget the human element. We see guys and girls in uniforms of some sporting sort and watch the physical display they give, never knowing what thoughts are passing through their head.
Never knowing what work they did this week to drill that backhand winner down the line. To hook the bouncer into the cheap seats. To make the red globe talk like it was a parrot.
Repetition of positive, perfect practise.
Extolling that brain of yours to store and compute every shot, every delivery, every throw, and every pickup so that you are flawless 99.9 percent of the time.
Sometimes your coach is your greatest motivator, but ordinarily, the greats were their own best motivator. They didn’t need outside help.
The other motivator can be instilled by managers and coaches.
If he creates a squad of players, say 30 wanting to fit into 11 on any given day, in Tests, ODI and Twenty20, now he creates competition.
30 players straining themselves to the limit to play every day in the final XI.
Injuries, form losses, non-thinking selectors all can act as levers for the cricketer who wants to succeed and stay in the XI.
He/she can be defeated by setbacks or be steeled by them!
He can be ‘counted on’ to score 30 runs and take two wickets, or he can score 200, and take five.
He can think better than his opponents within the squad and his opponents on the field…or he can compound and fall by the wayside.
I saw James Anderson in tears after being thrashed by Hayden, Gilchrist, Langer and Co. one day.
He doesn’t cry any more.
James Anderson makes others cry – other batsmen, other bowlers who want his job!
Joe Root and Alistair Cook look like choir boys, but would cut your heart out to play for England.
It is simply the case that you need to make yourself better than everyone you face. You have to have all the answers.
If you fail through not working hard enough, don’t come crying to the selectors or the critics. They won’t have any sympathy.
There are at least 50 guys who can play cricket for Australia tomorrow – but only 11 in any game.
Are you going to be ‘in the eleven’?
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