Professional cricketers’ perceptions of the importance of antecedents influencing repeatable good performance

Examined whether there is overall agreement amongst professional cricketers on the factors which are most important for the occurrence of repeatable good performances in the sport. Also, the consistency of the rank-order of such variables was investigated across individuals and roles within the same sport. 198 cricketers (100 batters and 98 bowlers) who play or have played first class cricket in the English County Championship completed a rank-order task, which enabled them to use their experiences to judge the importance of 15 selected performance-influencing variables. Cultural consensus analysis indicated that no one factor for either batters or bowlers was significantly more important, despite many batters and bowlers ranking the need for 'total self-confidence' highest. Whilst no over-all agreement was found for batters and bowlers in their ranking of variables, a group of similar 'core elements' (e.g., total self-confidence, following a set prematch routine, set performance plans, optimal arousal, and using mental rehearsal) were highly ranked by both groups, which may be an important consideration for practitioners endeavoring to produce strategies that encourage more consistent and higher performance for cricketers.