Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. 1 Corinthians 9:25 NIV

In the start of this year our friends South of the Limpopo in the psychology fraternity held their first ever conference in sport psychology. The hybrid event was dubbed the 1st South African Conference On Sport Psychology and Development. It was a two day conference which was hosted by University of Fort Hare (UFH) in collaboration with the South African Society for Sport and Exercise(SASSEP) and the Eastern Cape Sports Academy from the 24th and 25th of March 2022.

The benefit of the conference was to help meet the strategic outcomes in the sporting context of psychology and development.  According to Prof Leon van Niekerk from UFH’s Human Movement Sciences Department and organizer of the conference, sport psychology addresses the mental development and skill of an athlete to be mentally and psychologically prepared for sports performance, its inclusion in sports development can contribute to athletes performing competitively in their specific sports.

Zimbabwe Cricket in its top form was captained by Andy Flower and competed well as a test playing nation, the current performance is way below that standard. One thing which has characterized the current team in particular that of 2022 is that players have failed to be consistent in their performance and the team has failed to be competitive when pressure mounts. At one point the team is almost there winning a game or two then after that they lose the whole series, failing in certain matches to just register three digits on the batting score sheet. Zimbabwe Cricket this year have failed to win despite how weak the opponents look, they have lost to South Africa A team, Nepal, Namibia and as I am writing this 9th of June, 2022 they are facing Afghanistan and things are not looking good.

Psychologically the team might benefit if it considers incorporating psychological sporting science which will help in player winning attitudes and mental toughness for elite competitive sporting. Gonz (2006) states that Sports Mental Training has been called the Science of Success. The hope is that Zimbabwe cricket starts to invest heavily in Sports Mental Training so that they can experience success and be able to compete at elite levels. The team also stands to benefit in sports mental training by dealing with the subconscious defeat mentality which permeate any team after a series of loses. The defeated mentality builds up as a team loses game after game, subconsciously a defeat mentality and attitudes are built and losing becomes the character of the team.

As the Conference in South Africa stated currently South Africa has no registration category of Sports psychology. Persons registered as Counseling Psychology and Clinical Psychology have competitively provided these services to the benefit of South African sport. The Sports Mental Training has put South Africa sport at its best with consistency and highly competitive results at international level. It is my hope that Zimbabwe Cricket might find it necessary to revive the competitiveness of this interesting sport by engaging psychologists even at international level who will be understudied by local psychologists for the improvement of the sport and the science of Mental Training.

Having said this as Society of Zambezi Psychology(SZP) we wish our cricket team and board all the best and look forward to see that competitive edge which our cricket was well known for, yes we believe and yes we know it’s possible.

Prosper K Mushauri

Counselling Psychologist