I don’t know how many realise that cricket is a mental game. Experts say that cricket is 80 percent mental and this has shown to be proven in the first two weeks of the season.There is no doubt that cricket is a tactical sport which takes a shrewd captain along with his 10 other players to outwit an opponent. Poor tactical awareness can cost a team to lose a game that technically they should have won.First of all to be a leader/captain you must love the game of cricket, study it, and in most cases eat, drink and sleep it. A good captain should be proactive, not reactive. However, I do not want to put the focus solely on the captain because he plays with 10 other players who are there to assist him and should think like a captain too.Far too many players walk onto the field and play and put no thought process behind what they are doing.Not many players sit down the night before or even the week of a game and train with a purpose in mind of who they will be batting or bowling against in their following match. Players have to start thinking ahead of time and not wait until the day of a match to become mentally prepared.Looking at the first two weeks of cricket there have been a few games that should have been won by one team but in the end were actually lost. All the respect and credit should go to the teams that used the mental aspect of the game to their advantage.The Belco Cup final at Lord’s, St. David’s, between Southampton Rangers and PHC demonstrated both sides of the coin. PHC lost the game that they should have won if only they would have implemented a cohesive team plan in the dying stages of the game.Towards the end of the game, Janeiro Tucker of Rangers was allowed to get a single off of the last ball of the over for at least four or five overs, ultimately maintaining the strike while he was batting with the number 10 batsman.With Janeiro the only one capable of winning that game for Rangers, PHC should have been doing everything possible to try and keep Janeiro off strike and bowl at the non-batsman, but they didn’t.Personally I even started to get annoyed sitting next to fans who obviously don’t have a clue about tactics in the game of cricket evidenced by shouting, “Janeiro give the other guy a chance to bat”.Janeiro, on the other hand, was constantly thinking the game out in the middle.He knew how many balls were left and how many runs he had to get, thus always calculating and keeping ahead of the ball game. Call it experience, call it science and call it what you like, but Janeiro gave PHC a first-hand lesson on how cricket should be played, from the mind.Second scenario happened this past weekend during a game in which I was involved in between St. George’s and Devonshire Recreation Club. Devonshire should have beaten us last Sunday, but their batsmen did not apply themselves, which in my eyes comes down to understanding what is needed of you at the time and knowing how you are going to accomplish your goal.St. George’s scored 249 runs in 40 overs, which is not a bad total at Devonshire Rec field. Rec were cruising at 160 for 2, well on their way to victory when the game took a sudden turn.Two of their key batsmen were out back-to-back which left them around 170 for 4 with about 20 overs to go. This meant that they only needed 79 more runs from 20 overs.In cricket we are taught to count balls and not overs, which ultimately meant 79 runs from 120 balls.Looking at the game from that perspective it is obvious that it was not a race to go for the runs. Besides for one or two controversial decisions, Rec’s batsmen came in trying to hit boundaries and in majority of cases were caught out when all they needed to do was take one’s and two’s.To be able to think the game and understand what is needed during critical times can be the difference between winning and losing.Another mental note that I observed was the field placing of Rec during a crucial period. In the first 10 overs during the power play you are only allowed two players outside of the circle. Strategically, these two players are normally placed in a position where you think the batsmen are most likely to score boundaries.Now we all know that Devonshire Rec’s field has got to be the smallest field on the Island so if you are allowed two players outside the circle then you should utilise them.There were times during the power play when they actually had nobody outside the circle, myself and my players included were dumbfounded as this allowed us to score at least an extra 30 runs, which in hindsight cost Rec. the game.The two situations that I have mentioned are merely little examples of how thinking or lack of can affect the game. I believe that this analysis can assist players and teams in improving their overall game moving forward.My intention is not to criticise, but to offer help through sharing my observations and knowledge. It is my goal to help Bermuda cricket improve so when I have a chance to pass on knowledge I will.Still on the mental part of the game, but coming from a slightly different angle is a player using visual imagery.Visual imagery is when a player can see himself in the heat of the battle doing well. This helps to prepare the mind and gives the mind positive thoughts prior to battle.An example of this would be a batsman going to a game and standing in the middle of the wicket prior to the game and imagining how he will score 50 runs. By him planting this image in his mind he has positive thoughts and is more likely to succeed.The mind is so powerful that it could also have an adverse effect and turn out to be negative. For me, I had an example of that some 10 years ago at Cup Match in St. George’s.I got a duck in the first innings. As I was sitting preparing to go to bat for the second innings my thoughts were entwined with the fat ZERO I had gotten the first day, so consumed were my thoughts around this I kept saying to myself, “I can’t get another duck”. The message I was sending my brain was negative so what do you think the result was? Yes, I went and got another duck in the second innings.I encourage players to not just play the game but to study the game, learn the rules. Knowledge is power and you can never learn too much. The mind is a terrible thing to waste.Coaching tip of the week: When a batsman goes to the wicket you would normally see them look around the field to see where the fielders are, and eight out of 10 times you see them hit the ball straight to the fielder.In the future, as a batsman when you go to bat up instead of looking to see where the fielders are look around the field to see where the gaps are.By doing this you are more likely to hit the ball into the gaps instead of to the fielder.