The reason I am still playing competitive cricket is because I am playing for a very good club here in the UK and I have a good social life from it. I have made a lot of friends which is a huge motivation for me to push myself at the weekend and play better for my team-mates. It feel like reliving my childhood again when we all started playing cricket together because our friends did and we all enjoyed that great time together – there was a real camaraderie back then and I get that feeling again now. This also makes it easier to perform and get the job done collectively rather than taking all the pressure on yourself to perform alone.
It is very important to surround yourself with good people when you are playing a high standard of cricket because these individuals will be your biggest motivation when you aren’t doing so well. The reason for that is that the stress competitive cricket brings with it means you are almost always in a state where pressure plays a part. Many people could easily reach the point of burn out which in turn creates a loss of enjoyment and eventually not wanting to play your favourite sport at all. Having those people around who can not only take away that pressure, but provide a fun and enjoyable environment to play in is invaluable.
I have been extremely fortunate to have played at Chester Boughton Hall CC for two years now and whilst this year I haven’t quite met the standards I want to achieve, I still have plenty of people backing me up and encouraging me to play my type of cricket. This is what you need when your confidence is low and you start taking on too much pressure. In this situation you need good friends who don’t judge you and don’t criticise if you have been below par – they only like you because of you as a person and not just as a cricketer.
One of the biggest issues professional cricketers have to face when they are not doing so well is that they can’t hide from their identity as a cricketer. They are always treated as a cricketer and asked about their performances, which haunts them when they are out of form. Like any other field, however, bad performances are the feedback the player needs to realise that something needs to be changed to get back in form again.
This whole process of understanding what’s wrong with your game can take some time and its very important that we have good social life outside of cricket which doesn’t remind us how bad we may have been performing recently. Having other activities outside of cricket where they have different friends who sometimes doesn’t even know anything about cricket helps, as the player is treated like a normal human being.