The Hindu Business Line : Why do cricket players come to blows?

He curiously terms the recent on-field/off-field antics as a result of the “apparent lack of emotional intelligence” among several cricketers from different nations.

“Cricket, in general, does seem to be going through a period where officials as well as players are struggling to cope with the myriad pressures being presented,” he told Business Line over the e-mail, on being queried about the recent altercations between two Indian cricketers.

Australian Dr Gordon - who advised Team India during the tenure of coach John Wright - is seeking funds for research which will investigate the contemporary needs of officials, coaches and players to cope with contemporary pressures.

“While other sports play a similar form of global entertainment that professional sport has become, only cricket seems poorly equipped to deal with the market forces at work,” he noted.

Mental toughness inventory

“We will leverage off our current research on refining a Cricket Mental Toughness Inventory, which was funded by Cricket Australia,” revealed Dr Gordon.

He is also a senior lecturer at the School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health, the University of Western Australia.

“The Cricket Mental Toughness research is well under way but the final research, on organisation-wide issues and the demands of contemporary cricket on administrators, coaches as well as players, is still in a formative stage of development.”

On how he proposes to find out about the pressure-tolerating abilities, Dr Gordon explains that the research will highlight the significance of using techniques based on ‘coaching psychology’ before and during events, as opposed to ‘psychological counselling’ after the event.

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