Josh Kennedy: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Cricket Matters podcast. Today's episode is what did you learn this season and how to apply it? So yeah, James, your season is over, but you're gonna ask yourself one question. What did you actually learn? Do you felt, do you feel you? Well, actually no. Before, before I go into, what did you learn, tell me how did you season go?

Let's start there.

James Breese: It went okay. I think that's, that's the best way you getting everyone. I'm, I'm my own harshest critic half the time. Yeah. But in personal terms it went, okay. So I hit a thousand runs in the course of the season, which is a good benchmark to have in all the games you play. However, in the league, the benchmark, I think, for any, any batter is you wanna hit 500 runs and leak, and I got 450.

From what I gather, yeah, close, but it's because it's below the benchmark, you always set as a standard minimum in terms of having a, a good season. Um, obviously great seasons are 600, 700 plus is what you wanna try and work where the best players are. But it [00:01:00] was, uh, it was, yeah, it was good. But I, obviously, for me, I couldn't, I wanna do better.

I wanna try and improve on things. So in batting terms, I'd say in some parts I scored runs in the important moments in some of the big games I played in, which was quite nice. But then in others, I didn't score the runs I should have done. But it's been a season of transition for me in my batting, where I've made fundamental, huge changes to my technique.

And it's how to apply them into the game, which I did with Steve over the last season. So it's been a success in implementing those changes. However, in terms of physical output. You know, I could have done, I'd like to have done better, but that sets me up for next season, a year older, a year wiser. Mm-hmm.

And taking my train and doing things differently in the off season now to gear me up to next season, which is a long way away. 'cause I can't believe it's the end of the season already. It's such a sad time. It's September the first, as we call it, quick. [00:02:00] It's gone really quick, really fast. So like I said, there's lots of positives in terms of learning and growth.

But in terms of output, I'd like to have done better. And on my bowling side of things is yeah, my, I've realized my should's in massively impacting my ability to able be able to bowl. Yeah. So I think maybe that's my offseason thing, is trying to remodel how I bowl to allow me to do something or kind of come to peace with the fact that I may not be able to bowl again 'cause of my shoulder.

Josh Kennedy: I know. So it's, it's a, we can't,

James Breese: we can't do that. We'll have to, uh, do something about that. Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. Or long term, but hey, look, it's that, that's kind of how I look at it. But we can go more in depth into how we look at this, but the key thing is now is it's the end of the season. Like how do you reflect, right?

Yeah. Reflection's the first key to improvement. And so many cricketers, I'm hearing, saying the same thing. Oh, next year I'm gonna be fitter. Great. How is that gonna improve you again? How? Yeah. Yeah. Why you can do [00:03:00] it. It's that enthusiasm of like, yeah. Something different. Yeah. What's the next thing we're gonna do to try and try and take the next step too?

So the ki first thing is how do you reflect? How has your season gone? You've gotta make impartial judgments and decisions. Mm-hmm. Right? And also speak to friends, coaches, and peers about, well, how do you think you went? What could you have done to do better? And sit back. Sit back and reflect. On your overall season.

And again, if output wasn't as good, why?

Josh Kennedy: Mm-hmm.

James Breese: You know, were you making changes? Do you make changes? Did you train too much? Train too little? Did you put on weight? Which most cricketers do over the course of the season I diet. It starts to like, 'cause I put on two kilos again, it's the classic two kilo put on during the course of the season.

Yep. But there's so many things here now, but the key thing is, is like players keep on saying, I just need to be more consistent. I just need to score more. Run. Well, how. Whatcha gonna do about it?

Josh Kennedy: How, how

James Breese: are you gonna do that? Why you do it, isn't it? And how exactly. And [00:04:00] that's the first stage of reflection here.

And I think the, probably the best way to look at it about, it's how I analyze it and go from my, let's take batting for me. 'cause that's why can I specialize in, that's my main forte. Look at my season and how I analyze it. And maybe it'll give you some idea of food for thought and how you analyze it, your season.

Two. So anything, but, but before we dive into that, Josh, any thoughts from you? What, what do you think

Josh Kennedy: on how your season went?

James Breese: Not my season, no, it's in general, people reflection. Any, any insights from you? How have you, how do you approach it? Looking from the outside in? 'cause there's, there's multiple categories, isn't there really?

Mm-hmm.

Josh Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. You know, physical, technical, which is obviously definitely not my bag. Tactical, you know, mental, emotional. But it's like it's going back over everything we've talked about on the podcast over the course of the season. You know, do you have, do you have a routine for before you go out to bat, do you have a routine while you [00:05:00] are batting?

What if something goes wrong? Have you got a mental mastery to, to. Put that bad shot away and, and get yourself back in the zone, so to speak. You know? Can, do you have a way of controlling your emotions? What's your, what's your pretty much meal, how, you know, how do you recover? There's, there's a million things, but you've gotta analyze each one,

James Breese: isn't it?

Exactly. But I love the categories of the physical side of things. Let's, let's look at, in terms of, okay, guess look at me in terms of physicality. This year, touch wood, didn't have an injury. I think my fitness has been, has been really good. However. I've neglected the weight room. I haven't done as much strength training between games to keep me maintained.

When I started doing my first session back last week, I realized actually, yeah, I've missed, I've missed doing this. Mm-hmm. And it's something I could have added just for more resilience maybe. During the course of the season, I think I could've done better. I could've done some more recovery, uh, sighting rides, I think at the same [00:06:00] time to do something.

So my, but fitness wise was there. However, I think I could done better to recover and maintain myself ready to go into the off season a bit better. And that's the, the first thing. Now, technically we'll come back into this, 'cause I think the most of the season for me was spent managing my technique, trying to implement it and trying to find a new way to make it work.

Which I think was the, at the detriment of me scoring one. So I can think about this. I'll come back to this in a second. Tactically, I'd say there has been a huge improvement in my game because I'm now thinking more game specific awareness. Yeah. Because I'm thinking now playing the scenario in front of me, which I maybe haven't done quite so much in the past, but I'm now thinking, well, what I'm now looking every, all the top players talk are looking at gaps.

I now look at gaps. I look at how to manipulate the field because I'm now more comfortable with my technique. So that's, I think it's a huge improvement. In how I performed this year. And I think definitely in the mental side of things, I was, I was able to manage it better mm-hmm. In the right scenarios based on the tactical awareness that I had.[00:07:00]

Yeah. So there's, there's lots of good things here now. So in terms of, again, let's look at the output for me. So I made significant changes to my technique in terms of my hands and my back path and my stance in the off season, hun. Hundreds of hours to make it go here, which is all great, but it felt different when I went out to bat for the first.

A few months. So I think the first two thirds of the season I was so focused on hand position, back position, stance that I wasn't thinking my scoring runs. Yeah. And which is a detriment to me, or thinking of watching the ball sounds so simple, but that's what I wasn't doing the first two thirds of the season.

But then when it all clicked and realized, actually this is how. Operate over the wicked and this is how I operate Round the wicket. Again, one little thing I realized was the change I made for facing bowls over the wicked. Mm. I opened my, slightly opened that path then didn't work quite so much for around the wicket, so I was struggling and I got out a few times for bowlers coming round the wicket.

'cause I couldn't align myself as well as what I normally do. But as soon as I fixed that, it's because, oh this, this work, this life is so much [00:08:00] easier batting all the angles. Mm-hmm. So I was too busy thinking about the technical stuff for the first part. Which didn't allow me to think of watching the ball and how to approach it tactically.

So in terms of reflection of my season, it was a growth season in terms of development. But the biggest lesson was you've gotta be happy with your technique and not take it out with you in the middle. Yeah. To allow you to free up your mental space and capacity to think tactically in how you're doing things.

So again, disappointed on output. However, the reflections are, there's been a a year of growth in learning, but how I manage games and how I manage and able to take games on to help in winning situations against a higher level. I think that's, that's the big thing, uh, in terms of how I look at things.

Josh Kennedy: So what, so what do you reckon needs to be your focus then during off season?

Are we going back to first focus on physical training? 'cause I, I say you've done a load of technical Mm stuff. Um, is it back to physical? Is it, what is it, do you think?

James Breese: Yeah, good question. I think [00:09:00] as always, the end of the season, until you assess, you're just guessing. And I think the physicality starts there.

So again, like I jumped on the scales this morning and I've put on two kilos from where I should be. So I was like, well that's, that's the first thing. It's like weight loss is the priority because it's harder in season to manage it. So in the off season, I know I've got, I reckon I'd like to drop four kilos.

So two kilos is my, is a comfortable weight. However, four kilos is more performance waste, uh, weight, especially You're fighting weight. Yeah, it is. Yeah, essentially. So I'd like, I'd like to focus on that now in terms of technical. It's building on the stuff I built in during the season. Now one of the big things I realized halfway through the season, 'cause the standard I'm playing is getting higher and higher and higher each each year.

So the ball was getting faster. So the biggest thing I realized was a lot of my wicke I was getting out to was because I didn't have a trigger movement. Right now, I'm not beforehand. I, we understand the trigger movement in terms of when you're [00:10:00] facing quicker Ebola, but that was a difference I made in the, in the season.

So I'm jumping around a little bit here, but that, that was a technic big technical change that I had to figure out during the course of the season. Stuff that the best players have already got figured out and don't take into them into the games. Yeah. By doing all this stuff. So I think it's to, in the off season now, is definitely physicality.

Get back to training, get back into the weight room, get back into fitter. I think I'd love to work, I've done so much zone two stuff over the years. I'd love to work on more anaerobic work to improve my capacity. Mm-hmm. In that terms, build my anaerobic engine. Get back in the weight room, start lifting weights more again.

I'm getting, I'm not getting younger unfortunately. So it's, uh, it's fighting the old age, that old age. And then technically wise, reinforce the things I've built on last season. I start to develop other things. So I think for me, I really worked on coming down the wicket to spin. So using my feet and just having no fear basically, and coming, doing, coming.

Now we get to do [00:11:00] that. I think next year is gonna be a case of f working really hard on my sweeping strategy to really dominate spinners. Both tactical, uh, um, standard sweeping and reverse sweeping. I'd love to do to add that to the mix of using my feet, but also I think there's the tactical side of speaking to better players and working with better players who've been there, done that and bought the t-shirt on the tactical aspect of maybe open the batting.

Let's just take, you know, again, good friend and my coach, Steve James. Working with him to go, right. Okay. What is the mental side of things? What is the art of opening? The batting? Yeah. For somebody who's been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and still continues to work with people at the highest levels, because I think that's a level of my game where I need to really understand and develop a lot more moving forward and people that talk about it, and you can talk about amongst your peers in club cricket.

Mm. But there's a reason why pros make it pros for a reason, not just technically. It's how they think and they approach the game and they think about it differently to club [00:12:00] cricketers. Yeah. So there's lots of things.

Josh Kennedy: Lots of lots of things. But if you're gonna work on your sweeping as well, we need to improve your rotation, mate.

James Breese: Exactly. Right. See you. You know it. Now, now, now you know what it all is. Exactly. It's a shoulder and rotation comes, it comes into play. Exactly. But that's kind of how I've, how I've looked at my season. And where we look at it, but again, it comes down to the assessment. Assessment side of things. Yeah. I was gonna

Josh Kennedy: say,

James Breese: what

Josh Kennedy: would your advice be then to sum up for average club cricketer to how should they reflect on their season and their support and action plan in place?

I guess for, for making changes,

James Breese: first thing is gotta play cricket. Look at your stats for the. What are your stats? How many runs you scored? How many wickets or poles have you taken this year? And that's a starting point. Then go into it and go, okay, let, let's look at these. Well, our method is always the same.

We look at the physical aspect. Our cricket matters method is the physical, physical side of things, the mental side of the game, the technical and the tactical. So each of those four quadrants, well analyze well, how did you perform in each of those [00:13:00] during the course of the season? Were you fit enough?

Were you injury free? Right. Technically wise, were you trying to implement anything new this year? Okay. Or no? Or, sorry, mental in the mental side of the game? Well, how do you cope under pressure? Hmm. You go back to key moments and key games where you could have won the game for your team, or when you did win the game for your team, for your club.

Then look at the technical side of things. What went well? How many, how often did you get out? For example, and it's a really great to look at, how often were you LBWA bolt or caught? Because that tells you, you know, failure leaves clues, success leaves clues. So it tells you there's a pattern on the trend.

If it's a variety of stuff, well okay, cool. But if you're consistently getting out bold with LBW, well then maybe there's a technical issue holding you back from there. And then there's a tactical side. What was your tactics like? Do you even even think about it or consider it? If not, then there's so many different things to look at.

So if those are four quadrants, essentially that we look at, so start there and build from there. But then. It's [00:14:00] off season now. Mm-hmm. So we need a bit of downtime, but also we need to assess where the body is right now to make a plan for how we're gonna move forward. So for us, we always say it and if a performance analysis with us will give you, we'll screen how well you move, not just terms of risk of performance, but risk of injury, then we need to look at your body weight, body cop.

Do you, if we need to prioritize fat loss over the course of the of the year. Of the off season, or is it actually physical growth or that, and then you can look at technical stuff. Okay, I need to work on this, ready for next year. Because the best players start working on technical stuff. Before everybody else.

So don't wait till January before it's too late. Have a break. But October, November time is when the real players come in and start working their technique and focusing on things there. So that's my two points.

Josh Kennedy: Absolutely like it. Excellent. So there you go guys. Uh, make sure you take time to reflect on your season and get a plan in place of what you're gonna do about it.

Don't just go, oh, I'm gonna get, I'll get more runs next season. Think about hows and the whys and the [00:15:00] where fors. Uh, that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. If you would like our free training plan, then go to cricket matters.com/train. And remember, our goal is to make you a better cricketer.