Psychology student Anya Shrubsole knows plenty about the relationship between perfectionism and competitive anxiety, and has used those lessons to aid her bowling
Adam Collins20-Aug-2016With 130 international wickets under her belt, and an imposing T20 record, England’s recently appointed vice-captain Anya Shrubsole would have been one of the first internationals selected for the Women’s Big Bash League in Australia last winter. If, that is, she had chosen to make the trip.She decided against joining the best of the best in the WBBL partly to preserve her body from the rigours of a chaotic schedule, but mostly because her final university dissertation was due (imagine that in the men’s game).In her thesis, the psychology student explored the relationship between perfectionism and competitive anxiety; a topic appropriate for an opening bowler, specifically one who self-describes as a little bit of a perfectionist.Shrubsole spoke to ESPNcricinfo during the Kia Super League, where she is representing Western Storm, who feature in Sunday’s Finals Day at Chelmsford.”Part of this drives you to train and it definitely got me where I am today because I want to do everything well as I possibly can,” she explains of perfectionism as it relates to her own career. “But there’s a fine line: if you go too far over the line almost nothing ends up being good enough because no-one is perfect.”There is a relaxed self-awareness in this from a bowler once known for her grumpiness. At 24, but with eight years since her England debut, she is at once a veteran and an improving product despite her seniority. But she believes a mellowing has occurred in the process of applying her psychology learnings into her professional output.”A couple of bad balls used to get into my head and it would interfere with the next couple and spiral out of control and I think as you play more that’s completely detrimental to what you are trying to do,” she says.By putting in place processes to control such a spiral, Shrubsole knows she has limited a weakness in her game that batsmen exploited. The influence of new national coach Mark Robinson has been a key part in this development; he has schooled Shrubsole in the art of expectation management.”You want to perform the best that you can, but at the same time if your expectations become unrealistic you almost never meet up to them and are always frustrated.” Shrubsole’s method: an unfaltering routine to separate emotion from application.”I just use the stumps as a physical line,” she says. “I have from the time where I stop my follow through to when I reach the stumps to think about the last ball, but once I cross that stump line and back to my mark it is to the next ball. It’s no more complicated than that: making sure I’m always thinking about what is coming next not what’s just gone.”Perhaps the best illustration of Shrubsole’s mental strength happened with bat rather than ball. In last year’s Ashes Test at Canterbury she batted for 68 minutes and 47 balls without scoring. It was excruciating to watch, but symbolic of doing anything to turn around a dire situation.”I’ll never stop fighting until the game is over, I pride myself on it,” she says when recalling the hand. “So that innings became enjoyable and almost quite funny. I quite enjoyed it in the end.”
“This summer was a brilliant illustration of how things have changed within the team since Robbo has been in charge”
For all this, it’s somewhat ironic that a moment when Shrubsole was least in control provoked a career-defining change to her principle craft. At the 2013 World Cup, she was bowling to West Indies in early-morning conditions that swing bowlers dream of: dew still on the grass and moisture in the air. It was swing, not pace, that had got her to this level, yet she just couldn’t get the ball to move. She takes up the story:”Standing at fine leg I knew I had to get something more out of the perfect conditions, and I didn’t look like getting them out” she recalls. “So I turned the ball around to see what would happen – and it hooped. Then the next ball absolutely hooped. I thought ‘this was going well.'”It did go well, Shrubsole ending the day with the Player of the Match award, claiming 4 for 21. So she did exactly the same next time up against Australia, this time picking up 3 for 21. “I’ve forever bowled inswing since that day.”A year later, she led all-comers in the World T20, nabbing 13 wickets at 7.53 apiece, earning the player of the tournament gong in the process.It’s a pattern that’s continued; her bowling average across 47 T20 internationals an altogether ridiculous 12.79. Sure enough, her reasoning for success in the shortest form evokes that familiar theme again: control.”I’m trying to bowl as many balls that I can to hit the stumps, so you’re always in the game,” Shrubsole says. This was exemplified by the final KSL group game, where she claimed a – wait for it – quadruple-wicket maiden to end the innings, bowling three opposition batsmen in her five-wicket haul.”I know it sounds so simple, but it is that simple: hitting the stumps as much as I can,” she says, adding a reminder that she only really bowls three balls: a stock inswinger, a slower ball and a yorker. Better to have three perfected than seven not is her theory.Shrubsole will be in Australia this winter for the WBBL for her debut in the competition, and couldn’t be happier with England’s equivalent surpassing expectations in season one. But she doesn’t subscribe to the idea of the T20 circuit replacing the primacy of international cricket, stating that competitions need to always fit around that.It’s on that international stage where England’s women have flourished this summer, Shrubsole’s first as deputy to new captain Heather Knight. The times suit her quiet authority – smart but reserved, gifted but not flashy, she fits in tidily to the Robinson regime.”This summer was a brilliant illustration of how things have changed within the team since Robbo has been in charge,” she says. “It was the indication of a good starting point for how we want to play our cricket: full of professionalism, with a new work ethic to training.”Shrubsole sees it as a product of Robinson’s background as a coach from the men’s game that he fundamentally expected more, challenging why they couldn’t prepare as physically as the men. “I think that’s what we really needed,” she says. “He’s a brilliant coach and knows how to get the most out of people.”Was the change in personnel liberating? “Absolutely,” Shrubsole says. “It allowed everyone to have a clean slate and motivation to put best foot forward.” The obvious example of this has been opener Tammy Beaumont, who broke the record the runs scored in a three-game ODI series in England’s 3-0 thrashing of Pakistan.”She was on the outside; struggling to get into the squad… so for her, he came in with a fresh pair of eyes and everything before had gone; it was a new start.”Anya Shrubsole feels England have made strides under Mark Robinson•Getty ImagesShrubsole is also ready to step up if Knight is ever absent through injury. Sure enough, she’s thought about it plenty, as you’d expect from someone exhibiting all the traits of a quintessential cricket badger. When asked to name her favourite bowler she cites Michael Holding, who retired half a decade before she was born. She later speaks about clips she’s watched of Brian Close being peppered by the Jamaican in his pomp.”As with batting and bowling and fielding, you wouldn’t go into a game not having practiced it and have a routine with it, so I’m always keen to captain as much as I possibly can.”Additional to her obsessive watching of the game, she has routinely captained teams through her career, including representative sides at youth level and her county for the last four seasons. “So should that day come, I’m happy and know what I am doing.”Casting forward a little under a year, a home ODI World Cup rolls around. Shrubsole assesses England will be “there and thereabouts” in light of recent progress. She believes the “collective confidence” is steadily building after their faultless summer. “We are going to make mistakes, but it’s a case of having that belief in what we are doing.”It’s a considerable journey from watching her dad charging in to open the bowling, trying to get the blokes to let her have a bat or a bowl or a kick of the football.Naturally enough, as a swing bowler Shrubsole wishes for more Test cricket; understandable after her performance in that Ashes Test where she decimated the Australian top order on the opening day, claiming the first four wickets.”In T20 cricket you get a lot of wickets as a result of the match situation, but in Test match cricket you have to get people out,” she says. “I take joy in working batters out and setting them up.”A quick with a thesis in competitive psychology who also revels in mind games? If opposition players weren’t daunted by Anya Shrubsole’s capacity, they should be.