West Indies have requisitioned the services of world-famous psychologist Rudi Webster to sort out the lingering issues of its team ahead of their second Test against India starting on Tuesday.
Webster, lean and watchful as ever, attended the morning net session of the West Indies team who are fighting to stay alive in the series, having lost the opening Test at Sabina Park by 63 runs.
The unconfirmed reports suggest that Webster would be with the West Indian team at least for this forthcoming Test at Kensington Oval.
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West Indies have been on a losing spree in recent times and their batsmen appear to be trapped in their old failing of wasting good starts.
“When you are in middle, you focus ought to be on things going on in the present. You are where your mind is. There are two dangerous things in performance - one is getting trapped in the past or thinking far too ahead in the future,” Webster had said in the past.
“The second thing is thinking about all sorts of foolish things instead of the things you have to do on the field. In both cases, your concentration is in the wrong place.”
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Webster, widely regarded as cricket’s best-known psychologist, was engaged by the Indian team during their last tour to the Caribbean in 2006.
India won the series 1-0 but Webster’s direct role in this victory was not much highlighted.
Webster, then, had one-to-one sessions with many Indian cricketers, including opener Virender Sehwag who is injured and missed out on the Caribbean tour.
Webster, 71, is fond of many Indian cricketers, not the least of captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Sehwag himself.
He rates Sehwag as a better striker of a cricket ball than even Sir Garfield Sobers, Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar and Graeme Pollock. He terms the Delhi dasher as “once in a generation cricketer.”
As for Dhoni, Webster said, he “always felt Dhoni was going to be a tremendous leader.” After the Kingston Test, Dhoni now has won 15 of the 25 Tests he has skippered.
Webster, a local who now lives in Grenada, played first class cricket with Warwickshire during his younger days.
Greg Chappell benefitted from his advice which ended his run-drought of 1981-82.
Webster also mentally groomed Viv Richards after he was haunted by his team’s defeat at the hands of Australia 1-5 during their Down Under tour of 1975-76.