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Breaking patterns: How India can rewrite their ICC journey
Resilience will be as important as skills and tactics for India in the home ODI World Cup, say experts
New Delhi: For the Indian women’s cricket team, ICC tournaments have often followed a frustrating arc. Flashes of dominance, breaching the knockouts, and then heartbreak. It’s happened nine times in ICC events across the two formats – so near, yet so far.
At a recent ICC event, captain Harmanpreet Kaur said: “Hopefully, this time we will give our 100% and try to break that barrier for which all Indian fans and we are waiting for.” Maybe it’s not the skills or strategy that prevents these contenders from becoming champions but it is composure that is dictating their story on the big stage.
Mental conditioning coach Anand Chulani, who has worked with Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and several IPL franchises, believes the words we use can decide whether pressure becomes empowering or paralysing.
“Language is extremely important. It casts a spell,” he told HT. “Repeatedly using words like ‘barrier’, ‘choking’ often creates mental blocks. Instead, choosing empowering vocabulary like ‘challenge’ instead of ‘problem’ and asking questions like ‘how can I express myself fully and enjoy each moment?’ rather than ‘what if I don’t perform?’”
That reframing, he argues, becomes essential as expectations grow. A decade ago, the women’s team could play largely free of external noise. Today, with more exposure, broadcasting and social media, the scrutiny is larger. But pressure, Chulani insists, can be reframed into support.
He recalled Sachin Tendulkar’s thought process, a mindset that he shared during the 2011 men’s ODI World Cup, a tournament India entered carrying the crushing weight of home expectations. “Sachin said we believed that over a billion people were behind us, not on top of us. That gave us immense confidence.”
For Harmanpreet’s side, a similar mental shift could be decisive with the World Cup being held at home. It starts on September 30. Rather than feeling bogged down by the gaze of millions, they could see it as collective energy carrying them forward.
Maithili Bhuptani, lead sports psychologist at the Reliance Foundation Youth Sports, says that success will come from moving away from an overtly results-based thinking. “Players can break the pattern, firstly, by shifting the mindset from outcome to process,” she told HT. “Focusing too much on winning and losing is likely to trigger a lot of fear of mistakes in the heat of a final.”
Instead of worrying about the result, athletes are encouraged to focus on controllables such as a bowler’s pre-delivery routine, a batter’s shot selection or simple communication between captain and player. These anchors keep players in the moment, rather than overthinking about what’s at stake.
That preparation for pressure, as former India captain Anjum Chopra explains, is not something that can be turned on the night of a final. Chopra says she trained for pressure throughout her career – be it in the nets, match simulations or even in her backyard. “It’s something that you don’t start training for just because you’re playing a World Cup,” she said. “Because one fine day, you will only get that one chance to get your team to victory, score those winning runs, with your team-mates anxiously sitting in the dressing room, hoping that you take them to victory. You have to be prepared for that day.”
Both psychological experts and players stress that exposure to stress must happen in practice as much as in competition. Athletes can be deliberately put under pressure in training. Some tools that work are piping in crowd noise on speakers, simulated scoreboard chases or even distraction drills so that the high stakes of a final don’t feel alien. Bhuptani reiterated former pacer Jhulan Goswami’s appreciation of a “boot camp” model where players endure tough living conditions, bonding drills, team tasks and collective resilience building.
Breaking a long tournament into “smaller mental segments” is another effective tool. Bhuptani suggests narrowing focus to one run, one over, one innings at a time. Just as crucial are “micro-recovery moments” between plays. They can range from a deep breath, a posture reset, or a quick release of the last ball so players are not holding on to things that have happened. If it’s a bad delivery or a bad over, they’re not kind of carrying that to the next one.
India have repeatedly shown that they have what it takes to reach the final stages of global tournaments. The difference between finishing as finalists and champions may not be about rewriting skills and strategies but their relationship with execution under pressure. And as Tendulkar reminded, weight of expectations can also be tweaked to give wings.
