The Cricket Mentoring Podcast

Peak performance in sport | Mindset | Question & Answer with Tom Scollay

In this episode, Tom Scollay presented at a Keynote event as a break out speaker discussing peak performance in sport.

This is a snippet from the end of the session when they audience broke into a Question and Answer section with Tom. 

You will hear Tom answer questions relating to mindset in sport and how to manage yourself. 
We hope you get some awesome information out of this one. 

Bhavi Devchand - From the toughest time in her life, to being teammates with the worlds best

Today’s guest is a professional cricketer, a mentor of ours and the head of female cricket at Cricket Mentoring and someone who has become a friend over the past few years.

Bhavi Devchand is currently contracted with Victoria and is training and rubbing shoulders on a daily basis with some of the world’s best cricketers including Elysse Perry and Australian captain Meg Lanning. While she’s living her dream, it certainly has been an easy run and she’s had her fair share of setbacks and disappointment. 

As one of our mentors, I probably should have shared Bhavi’s story a long time ago but had I done so, we wouldn’t have got the last 15 months of her story, which as she says, has been some of the best and worst times in her life. The setbacks she faced, forced her to step out of her comfort zone, which has resulted in some of her biggest growth as a person, which she shares with us throughout this podcast. 

This is an awesome story of challenging yourself and getting out of your comfort zone as well as going back to why you started pursuing cricket...cause you love it. I have no doubt this episode will give aspiring cricketers hope that anything is possible and hopefully it inspires a young boy or girl somewhere in the world, to chase their dreams despite the obstacles that you face.

Lets get into it.

The 6 Pillars of Success - Tom Scollay

I now know what makes Steve Smith, Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson so special. They understand themselves and know what they need to do in order to prepare themselves in all 6 pillars, so that they have the best chance of succeeding, every time they step onto the field.

For me, it wasn’t a lack of skill. It was a lack of understanding. It was a fluke if everything aligned both internally and externally, and hence why I was inconsistent.

 

Through my personal experience and leanings, I now believe that there are 6 pillars to success, that are true for almost every athlete.

They are:

1. Technical
2. Tactical
3. Mental
4. Emotional
5. Physical
6. Lifestyle

Josh Philippe - Behind the Grill Q & A

G'day legend. Welcome back the Cricket Mentoring Podcast. This episode is the audio from an extremely interesting zoom call we had with the first 30 people who had bought the Cricket Mentoring online program "Josh Philippe - Behind the Grill". These lucky 30 customers got the opportunity to be invited into a zoom call with Sydney Sixers player Josh Philippe and ask him questions for an hour to gain a deeper insight into his game and mindset.

With lots of value in this episode, we hope you enjoy it.

Charlie Wakim on not wanting to be defined by 'talent'

G’day legends. Welcome back or welcome to the Cricket Mentoring Podcast. This episode was recorded at the end of April 2020 when we were at the height of the coronavirus in Australia. It’s not being published in early June 2020 and fortunately, things have become much more positive in Australia and around the world.

Today’s guest is a friend of mine and someone I’ve watched go from an average cricketer to scoring a huge hundred on his first-class debut. 

Charlie Wakim grew up in Sydney and loved his cricket but in his own words, matured as a person and a player a bit later and it wasn’t until he was 25 that he became a professional cricketer when he was awarded a contract with Tasmania. After some tough times, Charlie finally got a lucky break when George Bailey got injured during a Big Bash match and boy did he take his chance by scoring 160 on debut.

I absolutely love sharing the unique and individual stories of cricketers at different stages of their career on this podcast and after what some would say was a long journey to becoming a professional cricketer, Charlie is coming into the prime of his career.

This is another incredible story of tenacity and never giving up and I’m sure it will give hope to a lot of young cricketers around the world, especially if you’re not necessarily the best player in your team or state right now.

Jake Weatherald (Part B): The mindset needed to succeed at the elite level

This is Part B in our conversation with South Australian and Adelaide Strikers opening batsman Jake Weatherald. If you haven’t listened to Part A yet then I highly recommend you go back and listen to that out before listening to this episode. There was such great value in the first part of the conversation that you’re missing out if you haven’t listened to it.

We pick up this part of the conversation with Jake discussing his game in great detail and how he has been developing it.

I hope you enjoy the second part of this awesome conversation with Jake Weatherald.

I loved the part of this conversation where we discussed tinkering with his game and how he’s continually trying to get better. What I took out of that part was:

• You’re going to be challenged all the time and people are going to try and get you out in different ways so you’ve got to be willing to slightly change your game regularly so that you can continue to be successful in the future.
• Tinkering doesn’t have to be about changing something. It could be just keeping things the same over and over. If something is working it might be that you continue to work hard at the same thing!
• Roger Federer makes technical changes all the time and just goes for it. "I just trust myself to react and do what I want to do." The best players make changes so that they are better in the future.

I really enjoyed hearing about how he prepares himself mentally. As he said it’s about making sure your subconscious is making the decisions rather than your conscious. It was interesting to hear how he said when he’s mentally preparing for a team he knows they will challenge him with their voice, short balls and by bowling the top of the off-stump and he needs to make sure he’s allowing his subconscious to make more of the decisions which are done with keywords to allow his game plan and technique come together.

I also loved hearing his ambitions for the future and how he aspires to play 100 games for Australia in all 3 formats and that if he doesn’t have that mindset then he’s no chance of doing it, a real lesson for any aspiring cricketers listening.

I hope you enjoy this episode!

Jake Weatherald (Part A): The struggle into professional cricket

Welcome back or welcome to the Cricket Mentoring Podcast. If you’re listening to this during the coronavirus then I hope this podcast finds you well and gives you some lessons or inspiration to live your best life.

I absolutely love sharing the unique and individual stories of cricketers at different stages of their career on this podcast. 

Today’s guest is someone who has already done some great things in the game but at 25 years of age has his best cricket still ahead of him and some huge ambition to go with it.

As an opening batsman for South Australian and the Adelaide Strikers, Jake Weatherald is a 3 format player who is one of the most exciting batters in Australia.

In this first part of our conversation, we discuss Jake’s early days of playing cricket and how it wasn’t all smooth sailing for him.

When watching Jake on TV, he comes across as one of the most elegant and free-flowing batters in the game but as you’ll hear there is a lot of thought and planning and enormous amounts of hard work that goes into his game which was a result of being a lazy but quite skilled teenager.

So without giving away anything more, this is a story that I’m sure will inspire a lot of young cricketers out there so let's get into it.

Naomi Dattani on creating a path for female cricketers

G’day legends. Welcome back or welcome to the Cricket Mentoring podcast.

Unless you’re a keen follower of women’s cricket in England, you probably wouldn’t heard of today’s guest - yet! 

Naomi Dattani is an all-rounder and the captain of the Middlesex women’s team and has recently spent time in Perth playing club cricket and developing her game in Australian conditions.

I first came across Naomi in November last year when she reached out for some mentoring and really enjoyed helping her develop her game and mindset during her three months in Perth.

While she’s not a household name YET, I have no doubt that she will be in the future, she has a very inspiring story that I wanted to share with our community. 

As one of only a couple female Asian cricketers who played in the women’s Kia Super League, Naomi is creating a pathway and inspiring a HUGE number of female cricketers in London and around the UK. 

During the recently completed and hugely successful womens’ T20 world-cup , the ICC stated that they want to have 1 million new females playing cricket around the world in the next year.

The Asian community in the UK is an untapped market for female cricket and hopefully sharing Naomi's story will inspire some young girls not just in the UK but around the world to either give cricket a go or to really pursue their dream of playing cricket at the highest level just like Naomi has done.

This was a great conversation with a lovely person so I hope you enjoy it!

Nicole Bolton talks about mental health struggles and her time playing for Australia

Nicole Bolton has without doubt been Western Australia’s finest female cricketer in the past decade but as you’ll hear in this episode it’s been a roller-coaster ride for her that’s included the highs of scoring a century on international debut while the lows have forced her to take multiple breaks from the game at different stages of her career.

She has openly spoken in the past about the mental health issues she’s had to deal with and overcome and she was incredibly honest about her struggles in this conversation. This is a very insightful conversation from an exceptional cricketer and very raw conversation with a lovely human being.

Please be aware there are parts of this conversation that could act as a trigger for people with mental health issues.  If you are struggling with depression, anxiety or any mental health issues then please remember that you aren’t alone. Speak to someone and seek help.

Now lets get into this episode.

Sam Harper discusses how he went from playing in the backyard to playing in the BBL

Today’s guest has developed into one of the most exciting T20 batters in the country with his performances for the Melbourne Renegades in the past two Big Bash tournaments.

Sam Harper is the Victorian and Melbourne Renegades wicket-keeper batsman and we caught up during my time in Melbourne recently to discuss his journey from the backyard with his dad and brother to playing professionally.

Harper was a big reason the Renegades won the Big Bash in 2019 with his dynamic batting at the top of the order regularly getting them off to a flyer. 

It hasn’t all been easy going though and at the time of this interview, Sam was waiting to be cleared to play again from concussion.

I love hearing the story of players at the beginning of their careers who often haven’t shared their journey so I hope you enjoy this episode and take something valuable from Sam’s journey.