Cricket 2022: Shane Watson opens up on his inner battles after the shock death of mate Phil Hughes

Shane Watson has touched on constantly fighting off burn out during his playing career in a tell-all book, which could signal alarm bells for two current Australian Test players.

In 2015, Shane Watson’s chance encounter with racing car driver Will Power resulted in a trip to America to meet the doctor who armed him with a set of skills and unleashed performances in the twilight of his career that he and the country had craved in the decade previous.

“I played the most consistently successful and enjoyable cricket of my life in my mid-to-late 30s,” he writes in his new book Winning the Inner Battle.

Tragedy was the trigger that encouraged Watson to discover what he now believes are the simple steps to the sort of mindset and success in sport he craved.

For the best part of 18 months in the wake of Phillip Hughes death Watson battled inner demons, unable to tell his wife, coach or friends. He was, he admit, “petrified” that he would suffer the same fate.

Listen to Shane Watson on the Cricket, Et Cetera podcast now, press play here:

Power and Watson met at a rugby league awards night, the driver told Watson how his driving and his personal life had been rocked by the death of a good friend, Dan Wheldon, in an IndyCar race in Los Vegas, 2011.

“It had broken him,” Watson wrote.

“I immediately saw parallels between his experience, and the devastating effect on my generation of cricketers the year before of the death of one ours,” he wrote.

“I had found this extremely difficult to talk about, even to my wife. It had not only intensified the stress of my underperformance on the field, but eaten away at my life at home: I was struggling to do things as simple as play in the backyard with my two-year-old son.”

Power and Watson were both unfortunate enough to have been present when the tragedies occurred.

Shane Watson has revealed he became petrified he would suffer the same fate as Phil Hughes. Picture: Matt Loxton

Power, who is the reigning IndyCar Drivers’ Champion, had sought help from a Dr Jaques Dallaire in Charlotte, North Carolina, and recommended Watson do the same. The meeting led to the book which is a fascinating exposition on the mental side of sport and life

It is sobering to reflect on the mental battles Watson and his teammates went through after the Hughes tragedy — something to this day he struggles to talk about.

“Facing fast bowling was always one of my biggest strengths as a batter,” he writes. “I was totally fearless … After the tragic event fear came into my batting while facing fast bowling. I was thinking this could happen to me as well …”

He held his place in the side, battling his fear, for seven Tests before being dropped in England.

At the SCG, against India, he made 81 in four frustrating hours and was out to “one of the worst shots I ever played to end one of the worst innings of my career”.

In the first Test of the 2015 Ashes — his last — he was out LBW to full deliveries from Mark Wood, on both occasions he was horrendously out of position because his mind was yelling “short ball!”.

“I definitely couldn’t have told my coach at the time or any players around me that I was petrified that the next ball from a fast bowler could have the same impact on my life,” Watson said.

“The tragedy of what happened to Phil Hughes is something no one would ever have thought would occur on a cricket field and the majority of cricketer’s mindsets shifted from there,” Watson told the Cricket Et Cetera podcast this week.

”In the end it became a real internal battle around not letting the fear of the ball coming down facing fast bowling. My mind was in the wrong place. The wrong thought at the wrong time kept coming into my mind. I was allowing it because I didn’t know how to control my mind to that point. I had anxiety, worry, fear around what might happen.”

Shane Watson says the wrong thought at the wrong time kept coming into my mind when facing fast bowling. Picture: Matt Loxton

Watson’s book is a simple self help guide that draws on his vast experiences in cricket and his series of podcasts, Lessons Learnt with the Greats. He readily admits that despite winning two World Cups and two Allan Border Medals he was his own worst enemy for the majority of his career.

“I wish I had known then what I know now,” he writes.

Honest as always, Watson is perfectly positioned to help others. He was a supremely talented cricketer and a fine man, but one who found ways to trip himself up.

Winning the Battle is an extraordinary and easy to read book that draws on anecdotes and encounters, while inviting the reader to take simple mental exercises that highlight the ongoing battles between the conscious and unconscious mind — and how they are best won.

There’s no old scores settled but he does admit the team environment after Ricky Ponting left the Test side was poor and results focused.

Watson revisits his chance to score an Ashes century and how he allowed his mind to trip him up on 95 when he began to focus on the outcome. Michael Clarke told Watson that he had a simple method of dealing with anxiety in the 90s.

“My goal is actually 150, it’s not 100,” Clarke said. “So, when I’m in the 90s I don’t care because my goal is to get 150, not 100.”

Watson learned later, after meeting the doctor, to control his inner dialogue and to concentrate on what needed to be done in the moment rather than obsessing with the outcome and fretting about doing the wrong thing.

Shane Watson has revealed how he overcame his mental obstacles in his book Winning the Inner Battle.

“The demon of expectation is a beast,” he writes.

Ricky Ponting, Watson writes, would always ask an umpire if there were two balls to go as a cue to staying focused on getting to the end of the over and nothing else.

Ponting also had a simple approach to focusing his mind before every ball by telling himself once at when the bowler was at the top of his mark, once halfway through his run up he repeated it and once again as he jumped into his delivery stride.

Watson says that Ponting instinctively knew that the “conscious mind can only actively process one thought at a time”.

The book rings alarm bells for players like Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne who cannot switch off during Test matches — Smith struggles to sleep.

Watson realises he was burning himself out by fretting about strategies and failure before a game.

Steve Smith (left) and Marnus Labuschagne have constant struggles with switching off during Test matches.

He learned in the last four years of his career to set aside 45 minutes before the game to “do some conscious and unconscious mind preparation. Any time a single thought about the game popped into my head prior to those 45 minutes, I would exercise the control that I had over my conscious mind and redirect these thoughts”.

“I was the king of burning mental energy. I didn’t understand the mind was like a muscle. I only had a certain amount of energy per day and I was ploughing through it.”

He warns, ominously for the majority of young Test players, that the obsession with video gaming contributes to the fatigue factor.

Winning the Inner Battle by Shane Watson is available at shanewatson.au

Originally published as Cricket 2022: Shane Watson opens up on his inner battles after the shock death of mate Phil Hughes