Handscomb on front foot against his critics
PETER Handscomb has opened up on his private battle with social media trolls and commentator criticism as he fights to win Test cricket’s mental war.
Few players have had their technique so brutally critiqued, with Shane Warne declaring in Handscomb’s last summer for Australia that selectors were sending “a lamb to the slaughter” by picking him.
That was four years ago, but Handscomb’s return to the Test fold for Australia’s tour of India next month is confirmation of one thing – cricket is a game played in the head.
That’s not to say Handscomb hasn’t worked on some
technical changes, but the 31year-old believes it wasn’t his quirky batting style that was setting him up to fail but the fact he was letting the vitriol around it infiltrate his mind.
Handscomb always presented as a self-assured cricketer during his 16 Tests for Australia.
But behind the curtains he felt himself engulfed by negativity, both from greats on television commentary and faceless keyboard warriors.
Handscomb leads the Sheffield Shield run-scorers this summer with two hundreds, including 281 not out, and feels primed to seize his comeback chance in India if selectors throw him back into the fray.
The most significant breakthroughs Handscomb made during his exile was to delete Facebook and Twitter and engage two psychologists to reclaim control of the allimportant mental game.
“I really struggled with not listening to all the comments and all the media comments that come with playing Test cricket,” Handscomb said. “I was listening to that. I was watching that. And that was getting into my head.
“Everything had been quite positive, albeit my technique was always different … and then as soon as you start going down the other side and you’re not making runs it all turns pretty quickly.”
Hours after receiving a call from George Bailey last week to say he was going to India, Handscomb copped a knock to his hip in a club game and immediately feared the worst.
“I was a bit worried as I was limping off the ground that the last few years of work might have been for nothing. But it all seems OK now. I’m ready to go if required in the First Test.”