Sri Lankan batting legend describes the art of letting the body take control from the mind
Since the inception of Test cricket, in 1877, the game has witnessed over 2100 Test matches. Thousands and thousands of men have taken stance at the crease with a bat. Only 11 of them have managed to score runs in access of 10,000.
The stresses of batting in Tests – technical, physical, mental and emotional – are enormous. It is no coincidence that most successful Test batsmen are the intense, brooding kind with a mind that makes you believe in the existence of silicon-based life-forms – a metalloid that is constantly ticking inside. The challenge for them is to stop thinking; to let go.
While words and words have been spoken and written about the most intricate minuteness of batting, one aspect not oft talked about is the art of mindlessness in batting – the need to not think.
So, when a man who has scored more than 11,000 Test runs, and is a qualified lawyer – two professions where the sharpness and toughness of mind are paramount to survive – explains to you the importance of not thinking, you listen. And stop thinking.
Here, one of cricket’s most intellectual and charismatic men – Kumar Sangakkara – describes the art with his characteristic eloquence. Sangakkara also talks about his approach to batting and the place that technique holds in his game.
You have been the most consistent Sri Lankan batsman in the last decade. You admitted that it wasn’t the case in the first four years of your international career. How did you change that?
I started my career against South Africa in Sri Lanka. The conditions were familiar and yet I couldn’t get past 20 runs in an innings. I thought that was the end of my Test career but then I got another chance of playing three Test matches in South Africa in tough conditions against a really good attack that ranged from guys bowling at 135 to 150-plus. It was a great challenge because I was asked to bat at No. 3. I managed to score a half-century in the first game and then a 98 in the last game opening the innings. That’s when I got the feeling that I could handle what comes my way at this level. But then I realized that it is one thing to get that feeling but to cement that you need to do more than just thinking about it.
That’s when I made a few adjustments to my technique. I tended to move across the wicket a lot and I tried to limit that movement. I had to learn to drive a lot straighter rather than hitting through the point or covers. Having made those adjustments, I realized that depending on the opposition, the conditions and the wicket, there are certain aspects of your batting that you should be open to change on a continuous basis.
Change, when it’s planned and geared towards improvement, adds a lot to your game. So, I kept making those subtle adjustments in technique gradually.
Once I had done that and I was comfortable on the technical level, I had to understand myself – what made me tick, what kind of work ethic I needed and what motivated me. I got the epiphany of what my strengths and weaknesses were and what kind of a person I was when it came to cricket.
That’s when I really started to improve as a cricketer. That’s what happens in most cases – players get comfortable in their own skin and understand themselves in the context of the team, the family and the game. Once you reach that level of self realization, that’s what really spurs you on.
Since then, even now I keep making those small changes in my game as and when needed. It could be risky but I’ll take it. You can’t say that okay, I am comfortable with my game and I’ll stick to what’s worked for me all these years. The opposition’s plans for you improve and you have to improve as well to keep up with them.
You spoke about being consistent. Consistency is not about being the same tomorrow as you are today, because tomorrow the benchmark will go higher. Being consistent actually means improving constantly. If you maintain the same level, your stand drops.
Every Test batsman strives to excel in overseas conditions. You’ve done that so well. But does it irk you sometimes that you didn’t get enough chances to play away from home?
This is a constant Sri Lankan complaint – not enough Test cricket. We don’t play enough at home or away. For a new batsman coming in, to play 100 Test matches would take him a long time, probably a career and a half. I would have loved to play more in South Africa, Australia, England and New Zealand, and sometimes you regret not having done so. But at the end of the day, you have to accept it and be pragmatic. I’ve had a wonderful time playing for my country and in doing so if I’ve had to miss out on a few Test matches overseas, so be it.
But you’re right; all the top level batsmen really pride themselves on their overseas records. In India guys like Dravid, Laxman and Sachin did that and so do the Sri Lanka batsmen. It is also about the public back home. They love it when we win matches at home but there’s a huge expectation on the Sri Lankan team to do well overseas.
You were coached by your father since you were a kid. What are the pros and cons of having your parent as your coach?
My father was self-appointed – I never asked him to coach me, he appointed himself and he still coaches me. I think there are more cons than pros here. It’s really tough to have your parent coach you but it’s also a good thing in many ways.
My father has a vast amount of cricketing knowledge. He is very technical and although he didn’t play beyond the school level, he is a very intelligent man who understands all the aspect of the game very well. He is very technical; with him it’s never the number of runs I score but how I play. If I bat well and score 10 runs, he’d appreciate it much more than a badly scored century. With him it’s also much about taking responsibility and ownership of what I do and how I do it.
He always stresses on raising the bar higher each time because in his view, if you’re spending so much of your time playing a sport and have made it your profession, you’d better be very good at it.
However, there isn’t any pressure on me to deliver or be more than anything that I am. All he wants is for me to be the best that I can be. It’s the same with my entire family. There’s never a brouhaha about the fact that I play cricket. My elder sister, who lives five minutes away from an international cricket stadium, sometimes invites me for lunch while I am playing a Test there because she has no idea that I am playing a Test match just five minutes away from her.
That has really helped me stay grounded. It was the same with my father. Despite watching my cricketing life from so close, things like the runs I score or the fame and adulation I get never mattered to him. All that did and still does is how I play my game.
The other part is that since he started coaching me, when I was 14-15, we have been in a 22-year old argument about cricket; things like what’s right and wrong and our ideas of technique. It’s been great. I have really enjoyed it. There have been times when I got angry at him and we’ve had fights just like it happens in every father-son and coach-pupil relationship. But in the end I know that if I need to look really deep inside my game and I ask him a question, I will always get a very good answer.
It really worked for me but I am not sure it would for everyone. I don’t even know how it became so successful for me because there were several instances where I felt like it wouldn’t work out. In many cases there would have been too much parental pressure, pushing and frustration. We managed to escape those pitfalls and it really blossomed into a fine relationship. I don’t think I could ever be that to my children because I don’t think I’d have the patience that my father did to put up with a kid like me.
You said your father was very technical in his coaching. Did you grow up to share the same penchant towards technique?
I came to realize with time that you shouldn’t get too technical. It is important to have a good technique but it needs to blend in with your personality, character and the expression of your shots. The most beautiful technique is the one you cannot see – when it’s effortless, rhythmic and when a shot is executed in such a graceful way that all you see is the shot. You never see where the bat comes from, where the foot or the head is. Everything just syncs and flows. That’s the real purpose of technique: to blend in, to disappear with subtlety.
When players over-think their game and overanalyze their technique, that’s when you see the technique in their game, and that’s not so nice. And you see the struggles too. So, I have always been a believer in having a good base and enhancing it with your own personality and style.
You once said that as a batsman you have to look confident, aggressive and arrogant. Do you have to fake it at times? And does faking confidence actually help you regain your confidence level?
It’s a tough thing. There are times when even if you haven’t had a great series, you still have to walk in with a very firm belief that you are out there to score runs. No matter how tough the fight is, you have to project intent to the opposition. You can’t come with your head and shoulders down and have anther five-minute excursion of struggle.
I think a great example in modern day cricket was Virat Kohli in England. He didn’t have a great series but every time he walked in to bat he looked confident and looked the part. For whatever time he spent at the crease, he showed intent and exuberance, and that was great to watch.
You ask Sir Vivian Richards, who batted mostly without a helmet. He said once, ‘Mate, I was scared of getting hit. But I never showed it. I chewed my gum, I walked in with a swagger and basically told the bowler that you can bounce me, try whatever you may but I am here to score runs’.
You’ve got to be realistic as well because it’s not an easy thing to do when you’re struggling internally with your form and any other issues that you may be dealing with. But it is important to be task aware. Sitting in the dressing room, waiting for your turn to bat, you can’t be thinking about what the opposition would be planning for you, what your team mates are feeling or for that matter even what you are feeling. All that should go on your mind is ‘what is my job and what am I supposed to do to get that job done?’ You need to simplify the task by breaking things down in manageable components.
Also, there is a fine line between being self-confident and arrogant. Arrogance can be irritating and not a very good thing. But if it works for you, you can be cocky. All you need to project is that you have the ability and the confidence.
I enjoy watching cricketers like that because it really brings out the mental side of the game – the need to adapt, fight, be strong in times of adversity and believe in your base, your technique and yourself, when others might not.
I was talking to Dale Steyn once and he spoke about the mental games that go on between the bowler and the batsman. He said even if a batsman hits him for a four, he makes him feel like he wanted him to hit it there and that it was a setup. Which bowler did it best?
I think the greatest exponent of that was Shane Warne. When you walk in to bat, he’ll make sure that he sets field within the ear shot. He would talk to the captain about me or the other batsman very loudly. He would say things like where we like to play, where we are more likely to hit in the air or something like ‘He can’t get through that gap’ or ‘He’s only got one shot and let’s block that’. These things mess with your head. You tell yourself, ‘He thinks I can’t hit it there? I’ll hit one and show him’. These little, subtle things that Warnie did, I think he was brilliant at that.
Is this the part where you need to keep your emotions in check?
As a batsman, it’s easy to get carried away by emotions. It’s good to be emotional as long as you can control them and use them to your advantage. But making a decision based on emotions and impulse is very dangerous. Being impulsive is different from being instinctive. No matter what shot you’ve played or what you’ve done with the previous ball, you’ve got to detach yourself for the next one.
Basically in batting, you have to be mindless. You’ve done all the practice, you have your muscle memory and your reflexes are more than quick to deal with any kind of delivery. You’ve got to let your body do all those things by itself without letting your mind take control. That’s always a struggle for a batsman. But if you can get there, trust me, that’s when you are at your best.
Is that how you define zone?
I think it is, because in the zone you’re never thinking; just reacting. You’re just doing what the ball tells you to do without thinking about the bowler, your technique your emotions or anything else. You’re just watching that ball and hitting it or leaving it – doing whatever it tells you to do.
We need to tell young kids playing cricket that to be a thinking cricketer doesn’t mean taking it literally. It’s about deciding how and when to use your brain; when to think and when not to think. I think it’s important to make young batsmen and bowlers realize the importance of not thinking, of being in that vacuum, that zone, and how it can help you achieve success.
Your brain has got to process various things very quickly once you’re on the field. But once that process is done, your mind needs to let go and your body needs to take over. When bowlers like Warne and Steyn are trying to play games with your mind, it’s important to be in that state.
When you are, those things will not affect you.
For an attacking batsman like yourself, is it a major challenge to decide when to use that instinct as your strength and when to not let it become your weakness?
It’s all about managing risk. In cricket, especially as a batsman, every single action is about managing risk. A simple decision of whether to play or leave a ball, is taking risk. The ball might do something unexpected or the wicket might. With every single ball you play or don’t play, there is a chance of you getting out – that’s a constant.
One example that pops to mind is that of Brian Lara. He had a horrific time against Glenn McGrath for a long time. He would walk in, edge one to the slips or behind the wicket and walk off. Once the West Indies had come to Sri Lanka and Brian, Murali and I were playing a game of pool in Kandy. Murali, being as direct as he is, said, ‘Brian, what’s this man? You walk in, Glenn comes around the wicket, nicks you and you’re off.
What’s going on? Why can’t you play that ball?’ All Brian said was, ‘Hey, listen, Murali. I am a left-hander, man. Every left-hander nicks one there. So I am not worried about it’. I thought that was a fantastic answer because you are going to get out at some point. It’s all about scoring enough runs before that eventuality happens, and how you do it is the key.
There are certain weaknesses in you that you can never get rid of. You just have to mask them long enough for them to not affect you. There are times when your strengths will get you out. But you have to accept that because your strengths are your strengths for a reason and you have to use them. You can decide to use them wisely and prudently but it sometimes defeats the whole purpose of allowing yourself to be free, unthinking and reactive.
No matter the conditions or the wicket, your body will adjust. There are some batsmen who say that on a certain kind of wicket they only play certain shots. I don’t really know if that is a real plan. Probably at the start of your innings you are thinking about the conditions and playing with caution. But if you are lucky enough to get past that stage where your mind has a tight control over your body, you find your rhythm and your body takes over. You start to feel more comfortable because you’ve thought yourself out of being in that restrictive state. Suddenly, on the most difficult wickets, you see one batsman who starts to play all kinds of shots and dominate.
You once said that for you the two most important things about batting are watching the ball and being balanced. When you get these things right, do you feel like it’s your day?
When I go in to bat and those two things are just right, that’s when the thinking part is much less. I feel freer and the reaction time is quicker. For others it might be different but for me these two are the most important things. When I go in, I don’t want to see the ball with both my eyes and don’t want my head shaking, I don’t want to be thinking whether my grip is right or if I am feeling okay. I just want to be so balanced that my body is fluid and moves in rhythm.
When I talk about that rhythm, it’s not about having a rhythm that is unique to you. You have to be in rhythm with the ball and the bowler. All bowlers have unique actions, run-ups and speeds of delivery, and the key is for you to be in sync with that particular bowler and delivery without fighting it. That means whatever the bowler sends your way, your body is tuned to negotiate it. It’s also about being in sync with what’s going on with your non-striker – running singles, relieving pressure off each other. You have to be in rhythm with that wicket. Sometimes, a wicket is slower, quicker or has an uneven bounce. When you allow your body to be in sync with everything around you, none of this matters. When I watch a good batsman, that’s what hits me – he is so much in rhythm and everything seems to flow effortlessly. That’s what I enjoy and try to replicate. Sometimes, you can do it, sometimes you can’t. At times, you can also play yourself into it. We often hear the commentators say, ‘Oh, he looks a different batsman after lunch, or tea.’ That’s what has happened there. He has played himself into that rhythm.
How do you pick the bowler you want to dominate? Is it based on his confidence level, rhythm or name?
There are certain bowlers who don’t like bowling to certain batsmen. But on a given day, he could be the best bowler of the attack and their reputed best bowler might be out of sorts. So, you need to go in there, understand what is happening and then decide which bowler you’re going to take advantage of.
When you pick a guy and say, ‘Okay, this is the guy I am going to take a risk against’, the risk is not about hitting the ball but the fact that now you have made the decision and you’re thinking. You are making a conscious effort to go particularly hard at one bowler. That might restrict your shots because you might try too hard and not let your body do its thing. That is the risk; hitting the ball over mid-on is not. The real risk is how that decision affects your mind and body.
Does the problem of over-thinking arise most when a batsman is close to a personal milestone?
Yes. When I, or any batsman, is in his nineties, we can start over-thinking, ‘How do I get there, what shot do I play? And that is not good. You just need to let it flow. Virender Sehwag did that so well. He got to 100s, 200s and 300s with a six or a four. He just executed.
When you let it go, it becomes a cakewalk. For instance, I have this memory of New Zealand in 2006-07. We played at Christchurch first, I got out to Shane Bond for four in the first innings, caught at third slip. In the second innings, we were about five down for 60-odd runs (46 for 5) and I had to bat with (Lasith) Malinga and Murali while still 40-odd runs away from my hundred. It just put me into a rhythm because suddenly I wasn’t thinking about anything, I was just executing strokes because I knew I had to score as freely as I could. So I was hitting a fine bowler like Shane Bond over point, mid-on and mid-off.
Then we went into the Basin Reserve Test at Wellington and again we had lost four wickets very quickly. I was batting in the same rhythm I had at Christchurch. I remember that innings because I started batting and I just batted. I wasn’t thinking what was happening at the other end, I wasn’t thinking about the conditions, which were pretty tough. My mind was so free and clear and I was just executing strokes. And I remember Daniel Vettori had come on by this time, I swept him and the ball went for a four. I went at the other end and everyone started clapping. I asked the non-striker what was going on and he said that was my hundred. It was very close to being a run-a-ball hundred. I remember thinking that on other days I might get conscious thinking, ‘Oh, I am on 70 or 80 or in the nineties.’ But on that day I didn’t feel the journey because it all came so naturally. It doesn’t happen all the time unfortunately but there are days when you don’t remember how you got those runs. That whole innings is just a blur. And those are the good days.
