When I first came into the Australian side a lot of the players were older than me, so they knew what they were doing and were left to their own devices to work out their own game.
I was quite young and hadn’t quite worked that out yet. I remember looking to those players and thinking ‘I want that to be me, where I can take a bit more ownership of my game and have the confidence in it that they have?’.
Why self-confidence is key
When you’re a younger player fresh into the side, you don’t have the data to back you up. But after a couple of years, if you’ve been a little bit successful, you can look back and see what you’re doing is working and work out what you can keep adding to that.
As my career progressed my theory shifted from thinking I had to hit a million balls in the nets to be a good player, which I did when I was younger, to having confidence in my experience and the work that I’ve done. It was nice that I was able to work that out myself over the years.
I didn’t really have that confidence early in my career, but as I got older and was a bit more successful and had some data to back it up, I became a lot more confident and trusted in the decisions I make about my game.
The importance of finding the value in constructive criticism
I’ve been lucky to be able to take advice from different mentors and coaches who I really respect. But at the end of the day, it’s your career that’s on the line, so if you don’t take ownership, then it’s on you.
For youngers players now I think it’s much harder to avoid that trap as they’re on display much more, so more people have an opinion on how they should play.
It’s about managing those opinions and perspectives and working out what works for you, because something that might work for one player might not work for another.
Having the maturity to take on the feedback and work through what you can take from it now, but also knowing what might work for you down the track and holding onto that. At times things might not work for you. Then after a few years, you’ll remember it and things will really click.
Australia will face New Zealand in a three-match T20I series in Mackay and Brisbane from 19-24 September before travelling to the UAE to defend its World Cup crown.
Victory could see Australia become the first team, men’s or women’s, to claim four consecutive T20 World Cup titles.
