ON A COMEBACK TRAIL

Struggled mentally after losing England spot: Gary Ballance

by Cricbuzz Staff • Published on

Gary Ballance was dropped after the Lord's Test during the 2015 Ashes series. © Cricbuzz

Gary Ballance, England and Yorkshire batsman, revealed that he had to cope with a mental battle after facing the axe from England's Test side midway through the Ashes series against Australia last year.

"It is never nice losing your place and to be honest, it was tough," the 26-year-old said on Friday (April 15). "For a while, I was struggling mentally and normally I consider myself quite strong in that respect. I was just going through a tough patch. I was struggling for form - you tell me a cricketer that hasn't."

Ballance had scored just one half-century in ten innings before he was dropped after the Lord's Test. Pundits and former cricketers had cited an apparent weaknesses in Ballance's technique for the axing. "As far as I was concerned, it was just one of those things but because my technique is a little different to a standard person, people like to comment. That's fair enough - people have got a job to do and that's fine with me. But you have to be quite strong as a professional to block these things out, especially when people start jumping on the bandwagon."

The left-hander conceded that he had made minor changes to his technique but added that the essence of his gameplay remained the same. "There are always little things that I can do and that's what I've done," Ballance said. "I've changed little things and worked on little things but the core is still there," he said. "As long as I know when I'm at the crease I am balanced and with a good head position, I'll be able to move forward and back as needed.

"When you are going through a bit of bad form you are always looking at little things, what is going wrong, what you have done right in the past. I just tried to look at how I was playing a few months before that in the West Indies. I've had the same technique throughout my career and I'm pretty happy with the way my stats in Test and first-class cricket. I know what works for me and I know when I score runs what I do well."

Ballance also said that the coaching staff and team-mates at Yorkshire were supportive during his time out of the England side. "Everyone around the club was very good," he said. "The players were very welcoming at having me back in the side. There are guys who know what it is like to lose your place, who have been in and out of international cricket and know how to deal with people who it has happened to. It's nice to come back into a side that was winning and playing good cricket, that always helps.

"I got a few decent scores, a big hundred at Sussex and a few other 50s so I was pretty happy with the way it went. And at the end of the day we won the Championship, and team success always breeds individual success."

Ballance didn't feature in the playing 11 in England's victorious Test campaign in South Africa earlier this year, despite being present in the squad, but that could change quickly following James Taylor's shock retirement.

"I'm really not looking very far ahead," he said. "I just want to get back to playing for Yorkshire and scoring runs. If I can do that, everything else will take care of itself. All sportsmen have their ups and downs and the ones that come back stronger are the ones that go on to have a good career. Joe Root is a good example of that," he summed up.

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