A Mentor empowers a person to see a possible future, and believe it can be obtained. - Shawn Hitchcock

What is mentoring? Tom Scollay from Cricket Mentoring has the details.

It is a term that is most commonly used in the business world. It refers to an experienced person (mentor) passing on knowledge and wisdom to a less experienced person (student). Recently, it is a term that is heard more regularly in a sporting context. Professional sportsmen around the world arecrediting mentors as often as coaches for their success.

While mentoring and coaching can go hand in hand, a mentor is often different from a coach. Mentoring is more than just coaching. Mentoring is about building a relationship between the mentor and the student over a period of time. This is done through communication and mutual understanding.

In an article for Cricinfo, former Australian Captain Ian Chappell discussed the importance of young captains being mentored by more experienced leaders:

“In this case the only opportunity for mentoring would come at the underage level. The best way to improve as a captain is to do the job and learn from your errors. From the age of about 16–17 a captain should be left to his own devices, and a mentor could then discuss with him the reasons behind his tactics and strategy.”

Cricket mentoring’s mission is to give cricketers the knowledge and tools to assist you to achieve your goals and dreams. We want to assist you in achieving success at whatever level you aim for. We provide a resource (in person or online) for young cricketers from around the world who want to gain an insight into what it takes to be the best.

When you go to your local nets or cricket centre you will often notice a young player being coached.

While coaching is an extremely important part of learning, you’ll find that most coaches only cover about 10–20% of the game of cricket. That 10–20% is technique. While there are a lot of very good coaches, in our view there are many who dont focus on the other aspects of cricket.

We believe that cricket is 10–20% technique and 80–90% mental application.

This is even more apparent as you progress. All professional cricketers (with maybe a few exceptions) have developed sound techniques and are able to play a cover drive, a forward defence and a cut shot. However, the game is actually played in the minds of these top performers. The best players aren’t the ones with the sexiest cover drive or the biggest outswinger (although both are great skills).

The best players are those who can make good decisions, concentrate for hours, remain disciplined and control their minds. For this reason, we focus on the mental side of cricket as much as the technical side.

While sound fundamentals are vital to consistent performance, Cricket Mentoring focuses on developing players who can master the game beyond simply the physical & technical. Our mentors have played at an elite level and will help you to concentrate your mind and improve your game.

This is a guest article from Cricket Mentoring. For more advice, coaching and mentoring, follow Cricket Mentoring on PitchVision.