England all-rounder Nat Sciver-Brunt has revealed how last year’s mental health break and working with sports psychologists has helped keep her at the top of her game ahead of this summer’s Ashes.
Sciver-Brunt took a short hiatus last September, opting out of the home series against India after accepting she had become “emotionally fatigued”.
As one of the world’s most in-demand players, the 30-year-old had been pushing herself to the limit for a long time and concluded that an overdue spell off the treadmill of competitive sport was the only solution.
She headed back home, returned to domestic life with her wife and recently-retired England team-mate Kathryn Sciver-Brunt, and sought professional help.
Within two months she was back in England colours on tour in the West Indies and later resumed vice-captaincy duties for February’s T20 World Cup.
The weight of expectation that came with a massive £320,000 payday at the inaugural Women’s Premier League in India provided a test of her new equilibrium and she responded with a starring role for the victorious Mumbai Indians side.
She was named player-of-the-match in the final, top-scoring with 60 not out and hitting the winning runs at a packed Brabourne Stadium.
“I guess the WPL coincided with me feeling in a good place with my cricket and as a person, as well being really happy,” she said.
“I didn’t have to dwell on it too much. I didn’t have to think about that, just concentrate on the cricket. The break it was something I felt I needed because of the six to 12 months before that. It did get on top of me a little bit.
“I did things that had been on the to-do list for a year. Just being happy at home, doing normal things: mow the lawn, take the dog for a walk.
“I spoke to a clinical psychologist a couple of times and tried to reflect on things, especially the Commonwealth Games, how that went and how that affected me which is probably the main trigger for needing to go home.
“Since then I haven’t spoken to her but felt like I have got a bit more perspective from it and am able to, not recover from things, but just deal with things that come my way.
“I have reflected a lot of with our England team psychologist as well and checked in with her quite a bit, voicing the expectations and how I thought it was going to go during the WPL… what would happen if I didn’t perform?
“I guess working through those situations before it happened was really useful. So many people say that it is better to talk, which it is.”
The rapid expansion of the women’s franchise circuit means the offers will keep flooding in for players of Sciver-Brunt’s pedigree, but she has learned to pace herself and focus on priorities.
And in 2023, that means a huge series against an Australia side who have held the urn since 2015.
“I love playing for my country and want to prioritise that but also my mental health and getting the balance of being at home for a long enough period to reset,” she said.
“I wouldn’t want to just say yes to everything and be cooked six months in. I have been communicating with the England staff and working out how best to get me ready for the Ashes Test match and the rest of the summer.”
:: Mental Health Awareness Week 2023 is taking place from May 15-21.
IPL: Mumbai Indians condemned to last-place finish after 18-run defeat to Super Giants
Rohit Sharma's half-century was not enough for Mumbai Indians as they slipped to an 18-run defeat to Lucknow Super Giants at Wankhede Stadium.
The defeat consigned Mumbai to bottom place in the Indian Premier League for the second time in the space of three seasons, after losing 10 matches this year.
LSG were also left to lament their misfortune, as despite reaching 14 points, they did not qualify for the play-offs.
KL Rahul's 55 got the ball rolling for Lucknow, but their innings was ebbing out until Nicholas Pooran's dazzling 29-ball 75 took them to 214-6, despite the efforts of Nuwan Thushara (3-28) and Piyush Chawla (3-29), who stepped up in Jasprit Bumrah's absence.
Rohit's 38-ball 68 set the tone for what looked set to be a promising Mumbai chase, as he struck 13 boundaries around a short rain delay.
However, Mumbai went from 88 without loss to 120-5 in the space of six overs, leaving the tail with too much of a mountain to climb.
Data Debrief: Lucknow miss out
While Mumbai sit bottom of the pile yet again, it is a case of what might have been for LSG, who for the first time in their three-season history, failed to make the top four.
Fourteen points is often enough to get over the line and into the play-offs, but their poor net run rate of -0.667 means they miss out.
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
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