Kirsten van Heerden is a sports psychologist who worked with the successful Proteas women’s team
The SA women's cricket team that made history when reaching the final of the T20 World Cup. Kirsten van Heerden is in the back row, far right. Picture: Suppliedgroup of professionals who helped guide the Proteas women’s cricket team to a home final at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup last week.
“I know myself how much my mind played in my own performance,” she reflected this week. “It’s all very well training for six hours a day, but if you don’t train your mind as well you can’t use all that hard work you’ve put in.” “When they were in training camps we’d have group sessions but by the time the real competition starts, you don’t really need group sessions, it’s a little less informal,” she explains.
“Players often say themselves that on match/race day 90% of their performance is ‘in the head’ and I’ll ask them: So how much time do you spend practising this mental side? And they don’t.”
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