The
Sports Psychology Blog
Today's Sports Psychology blog follows the second days play in the County Championship match between Surrey and Lancashire.
Cricket: Lancashire - The Burden Of History
Going into the final game of the County Championship, Lancashire simply need a win to become outright County Champions for the first time since the 1930's. Surrey have nothing to play for. After two days, Lancashire are seemingly out of the game. It will take the intervention of rain, or a generous declaration by Surrey, to deliver them a title pennant.
The observers are noting the lack of energy and desire in Lancashire's play. Not the manner of a team chasing the title. Not looking like a team that wants the title. A team that will make things happen. Cautious fields. No urgency in the running between the wickets.
This is the moment. Seventy years in the waiting. A chance to finally break the stop situation. And Lancashire are being outplayed by a team with nothing but pride to play for. When you have experienced so much disappointment and underachievement, you can sub-consciously expect or be waiting for something to go wrong. It can be a feeling of relief when it eventually does! Or behind the face of optimism, can lie a lack of belief born from awareness of the teams flaws and weaknesses. Somehow, you, or the person next to you, does not believe you are the county champions in waiting.
To break a stop situation requires the total summoning of resources concentrated at achieving the one goal. All energy must be directed at a shared purpose. All energy. There is no place for uncertainty. No cliques. No power struggles. No time for caution. This includes players, coaches, staff and the board. Boldness is the order of the day. As Roger Bannister said when he broke the four minute mile, 'I knew that it was today or not at all. I was totally committed to the task in hand'.
There seems to be something in the background of Lancashire cricket that exercises the hand of restraint upon achievement. The only way for the club to break this stop situation is through a full and frank examination and discussion of all the influences that run throughout the cricket club. From the top down. Ask the difficult questions. Talk about the untalkable. Challenge the unchallengeable.
Maybe only then will Lancashire be able to stare down the beast of failure and break through their seventy year stop situation. But. It will take courage. And conviction. Maybe it will take an outsider to be that catalyst. Someone not weighed down by the burden of history.
Note: It transpired that Surrey did declare in their second innings, and Lancashire did come close to taking the Championship. But that should not disguise the fact that it took them four days to realy look like a side that believed they could be champions.
