If anyone knew about pressure in sport it was 5 times Olympic Gold medalist Steve Redgrave.

His method for dealing with the massive pressures of his sport work just as effectively for cricketers too.

He knew it's the context that is the problem, not the task.

The example Steve often cites is walking across a plank of wood. If the plank were a foot off the ground, most people would dash across it no problem.

Put the same plank 100 feet in the air and you start to panic. Suddenly you are not focussing on the task of crossing the plank. You are thinking what will happen if you slip. The context has changed, putting you in a negative mindset.

Putting that theory back to cricket, if you can ignore the context you will play better. You can put the context out of your mind by getting yourself into 'the zone': that magical sounding place where you are reacting as naturally as possible with no self-analysis or negativity. (Hint: It's actually not that magical, read my post on it to find out more.)

Of course, you are still aware of the game situation and what is needed, but you also only focus on what you can do to achieve it. The cliche: "control the controllables". (Hint #2 It's a cliche because it's true.) The more you can do this during a game, the better you will become at ignoring the context and the more likely you will be to get to the Redgrave mindset.

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