Mastering the mind game

A conversation with Sandy Gordon

Dev S Sukumar catches up with Australian Sports Psychologist Sandy Gordon. The interview was published in 2000, just after the first Test between India and Australia in Mumbai.

Ricky Ponting launches himself into an impossible catch, retrieves a game that's slipping from Australian hands, and re-confirms the importance of the mental game.
It would have been so easy, so understandable, for him to have taken it on the half-volley a fraction of a second later, or for him to have been thinking of something else. Especially when he'd been standing all morning in the Mumbai sun watching Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid help India claw their way back from a 115-run deficit.

In that moment, Ponting was illustrating the relevance of team psychologist Sandy Gordon's blackboard strategies of "Task Awareness", "Individual Zone of Optimal Functions", "Performance Profiling" and so on. All of which would sound like a load of tosh, if it hadn't helped Steve Waugh and his men win the 1999 World Cup from an improbable position.

People often talk about sport as sublimated warfare. Has sport replaced war in our psyche?
I would think there is definitely strategy involved, there is definitely competitiveness… Cricket isn't as contact as other sports… We have a sport in Australia called Australian Rules Football and that is war (laughs)… and it's not as contact as soccer… but there is an element of aggression involved, an element of self-defence , you have an enemy, so I suppose you could make an argument that it is like war, but I think if you focus too much on beating the opposition in sport - in any sport - you're taking your eye off the ball - and the important focus in sport is focussing on what you're doing.

If you get the process right, the outcome will look after itself. At the Waca, and with the Australian teams, we don't talk about winning, we talk about the process of playing the game as well as we can. And if we get the process right, if all the bowlers bowl according to plan, and if all the batsmen execute their individual plans, then we're always going to be pretty competitive.
The Australians are interested in playing well, and that's what they have control over, they don't have control over the outcome, so why bother about it?

What are the new territories of understanding of the mind?
That's what I'm talking about this week. The ideal zone, the zone of optimal functions, is a new thing. That's mid-90's, that came out… this guy Yuri Hanin from Russia came out with that, and it's been used in a number of sports, like golf, and I'm bringing it into cricket. So everything I talk about has a research foundation to it, it's not an opinion, and that's why it is very solid.

And what does this research say about the mind?
The mind can be worked. The mind can be trained, that's what it says. You can train the mind to operate efficiently and effectively, just like the body.

So what is the mind?
The brain. What you think. That's what psychology is all about.

Is it something like a software program?
Yeah, I guess so. You still need a software programmer to set it up… I don't like analogies, some things get lost in analogies.
I just know that the brain drives the body … all right?… and it drives it through cognition, through thinking. And the amount of effort expended, the persistence, the resilience, the choices you make are all controllable… you've got a choice. This way of thinking hurts performance; that way of thinking helps performance.

So you mean you can get yourself to think whatever you want to?
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it needs to be pointed out. Now this is what I meant with (preparing) the younger players. They need to be told what to think at the point of delivery. At the point of delivery, what're you thinking about as a batsman? I know 12-year-olds would go: "I don't know… I'm just worried about getting hit!" y'know? whereas the intelligent batsmen watch the ball; and if I watch the ball, I am not getting hit,… y'know?

You talked about controlling your actions by the way you think. But controlling the mind is probably one of the hardest things to do…
You think so? You probably haven't got any discipline then.
It's a focus of 'What am I thinking about right now? What should I be thinking about?'
Knowing what to concentrate on is one thing; when to concentrate, is another. When you get them together, you get somebody who knows how to concentrate. Paying attention, that's what it is. Paying attention to the right things at the right time.

We all know how good the Australians are at handling pressure on the field. But are they as good at handling it off the field, when, say, a player is diagnosed with a disease or something like that?
I think you can transfer the skills you learn on the field. In terms of injury and illness, I don't know anyone who handles that perfectly, but… what I teach is, simply make it temporary.
This is a temporary thing, which you'll have to accept, you can't deny it. Our contracted players, unlike the Indian players, are encouraged to report injuries. So that small injuries don't become bigger injuries. So that's a very healthy thing. That's going to prolong their career for a start, and it helps them understand they're not out of the picture when they leave.
But all the time you got to think about accepting your injuries, focussing on your rehabilitation goals, and thereby you make it temporary. At the moment you're injured, but you won't be in six months' time.
Another thing what I get the players to do is focus on what they can do, as opposed to what they can't do. You can play golf, or go for a swim. When you're ill, you can read a lot, play music. You can, you know, do all sorts of things.

You came back from quite a hole to win the 1999 World Cup.
Again, we didn't focus on winning. We had a camp in May. Our focus was on trying to adjust from the Test playing conditions in the West Indies. Once we got it right, it was a matter of adapting. So there was never any panic. And having to win every game in a row, helped us focus even more.

How would you work on, say, a batsman like Ponting, when he's going through a form slump?
Well, a lot of the time, players think it's a mental thing when it's not, it's a technical thing. But to answer your question, I would ask them, what is your pre-delivery routine? And a lot of it is behavioural. I would ask him about the discipline in the mind about focusing on the ball. Langer's key phrase is "watch the ball closely, work hard and have fun."

And even if that doesn't work?
You think I'm some sort of magician, don't you? I have no idea why he is not scoring runs. All I'm asking him is to make sure his mental approach to every delivery is such that he uses it every time. But there are some times when I don't know and he doesn't know why he is not scoring runs. So we just got to accept that. I don't have all the answers, never will. All I know is that the mind can be prepared for certain critical moments and a top player should go through the pre-delivery routine every time. But there are things that happen in every sport that you cant explain. Everyone has peaks and troughs, the key is to flatten them out.

So when a batsman gets out for 15-20 runs or something, comes in, and I don't go chat, but they make comments, and I ask if you got that delivery again, what would you do? So they say they'll play the same shot again, or maybe let it go… all right, now you're in control again. Let's get on with the game, sit up here, support the rest of the guys. No point in running around the back and hanging yourself… waste of time.

Do other activities help increase sports performance?
I think it does, just for morale. It's very interesting to see how people express themselves in an other medium, writing a poem. But I'm very impressed with the degree of skill these guys have in writing poems and telling stories. And singing… we sing a lot. Brett Lee and Shane Lee… these guys are good musicians. It frees them up from playing cricket all the time. It allows another aspect of themselves to develop.

Which areas are you working with the Indian team?
The Indian players have to become mentally tougher. Talent is not a gift, it's a job. And if one has to perform consistently in his job he has to be able-bodied. Fitness always helps to cope with frustration and competition, an integral part of cricket these days.
Secondly, cricket is not as interactive as soccer or hockey. It is basically an individual game played by a group. We'll have to make the players perform like a team, with each one knowing their strengths and weakness.

Of Scottish birth, Gordon is heavily-built, but comes across as rather mild-mannered. He thinks of himself as "Low profile, high impact"… likes to play the guitar… attends classes on Thai cooking… married to a marathon runner, Barb,… has three dogs,…and just celebrated his 50th birthday