Cricket Tips: Do you have the mind of a winner?

Did you get a chance to watch the final of the NatWest One Day series between Australia and England? It was one of the most thrilling and exciting matches I've seen for a long time.

"It was one of the all-time great one-day cricket matches" --Ricky Ponting

If you missed it, you can read a match report here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/4644957.stm

So what lessons can we learn from this game?

At 33 for 5 wickets, it look extremely unlikely that England would be able to pull off such a dramatic come back to level the game. As pessimism from the commentators and spectators alike would have made most think that England were dead and buried, with no chance of winning (or drawing) the match.

But Geraint Jones and Paul Collingwood had other ideas and a completely different mindset. This ultimately led to England managing to get back into the game and secure a draw. These two players displayed a number of qualities that you should use in your game to win more matches, score more runs or take more wickets.

Self belief/confidence: With all the odds against them, they never for one moment had any doubt in their own ability to help put England in a position where a win was possible.

Belief in your own ability is one of the biggest stumbling blocks many players encounter. If you've put the training and work in, you have no reason not to believe in yourself and your ability. With self belief comes confidence and I've found that generally the more confident a player is, the better their performance.

Another thing to learn from this match: Never ever give up however bad the situation seems!