A cricketer can know exactly where the ball needs to go and still feel unable to release it naturally.
The bowler may slow down, stutter at the crease, hold onto the ball, drag it into the pitch or send it far from the intended line. A fielder may comfortably stop a difficult shot, then freeze or produce an awkward throw when returning the ball over a short distance.
This is not ordinary inconsistency. The player often describes a disturbing separation between intention and action:
I know what I want to do, but my body will not let me do it.
These experiences are commonly called bowling or throwing yips. They can damage confidence, enjoyment and identity because the disrupted movement was once automatic.
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What Do Cricket Yips Look Like?
Bowling yips may involve holding onto the ball, releasing it unusually early or late, stuttering in the run-up, feeling the arm lock or jerk, or sending the delivery far from its intended line. Some players bowl adequately alone but become blocked when watched or in particular situations.
Throwing yips can affect fielders and wicketkeepers. The difficult throw is sometimes the apparently easy one: returning the ball to the bowler or throwing over a short distance when there is time to think. A fast, instinctive throw during active play may feel easier because conscious supervision has less opportunity to interfere.
The symptoms vary. The term yips describes an experience; it does not by itself explain the cause.
Yips, Technique or Something Else?
Not every loss of control is the yips. Fatigue, pain, injury, workload, a recent change of action or an uncertain technique can affect bowling and throwing. This is why a qualified cricket coach and, where appropriate, a physiotherapist should assess the movement.
However, repeated technical changes can become part of the problem. The player collects several instructions and monitors every stage of an action that once operated as a whole.
This is closely related to overthinking in sport and conscious interference with an established skill.
There is also an important medical boundary. The Mayo Clinic’s overview of the yips explains that some cases may involve focal dystonia, a neurological condition affecting particular muscles during a specific task. Persistent spasms, tremor, abnormal postures or symptoms appearing in other activities justify assessment by a doctor or neurologist.
Psychological coaching cannot diagnose or medically treat dystonia. Technical, physical, neurological and psychological influences may also overlap.
How the Fear Cycle Develops
The cycle may begin with a technical change, injury, embarrassing delivery or unexplained loss of control:
- The player experiences an unusual release.
- The incident is treated as significant or threatening.
- The next attempt becomes a test.
- Attention turns inward towards the arm, hand and release.
- Tension and conscious control disrupt timing.
- Another poor delivery appears to confirm the danger.
- Anticipation begins earlier, sometimes before training or selection.
The player may avoid bowling, disguise the problem, practise excessively or repeatedly ask whether the action looked normal. This search for certainty keeps the movement under examination.
Research by Mark Bawden and Ian Maynard explored the lived experience of cricket bowlers with the yips and identified anxiety, increased self-awareness and attempts to consciously control skilled movement as important features. Their peer-reviewed study, Towards an Understanding of the Personal Experience of the Yips in Cricketers, remains a central cricket-specific reference.
What Cricketers’ Experiences Teach Us
The yips have affected cricketers at very different levels. Their stories do not provide a universal treatment, but they reveal what can help—and what can make matters worse.
Scott Boswell’s experience in the 2001 Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy final became publicly associated with a 14-ball over containing repeated wides. His account in The Guardian shows how ridicule and repeated replaying of a visible breakdown can deepen shame. He ultimately rebuilt a life in cricket through coaching, but his story should never be reduced to an amusing clip.
Cameron Steel offers a recovery story. He has spoken about experiencing the yips in 2016, believing he would never bowl again and practising so much that the workload contributed to shoulder surgery. Paul Collingwood later kept his bowling alive at Durham, and Steel gradually returned before becoming a leading County Championship wicket-taker for Surrey in 2024. The lesson is not “practise more”. Reduced identity pressure, supportive coaching and renewed enjoyment helped bowling become part of his game again.
Former Surrey spinner Keith Medlycott retired prematurely after developing difficulty releasing the ball, although he later built a successful coaching career. Not every player follows the same path, so improvement should not be promised to a deadline.
Rebuilding the Action: Principles Rather Than a Formula
A responsible recovery plan is individual. It may include the following stages.
1. Assess Before Assuming
Clarify when the disruption occurs, what changed before it began and whether pain, workload or technique is involved. This prevents every symptom being labelled psychological.
2. Reduce Shame and Constant Testing
The player needs an environment in which a poor release is information rather than a public verdict. Early practice may need privacy, an agreed purpose and a limited duration.
3. Map the Trigger Precisely
Does it occur from a full run-up, with a batter present, during a short throw or only when selection matters? Mapping the conditions replaces “I cannot bowl” with a more accurate picture.
4. Reintroduce Movement Progressively
With a cricket coach, the action may be rebuilt from manageable tasks towards the full skill, varying distance, pace, run-up, target size, observers and competitive consequence. The aim is to accumulate tolerable experiences rather than immediately testing the player in a decisive match over.
5. Move Attention Towards Intention
One technical cue may be useful; five rarely are. Attention may move towards trajectory, target, rhythm or the intended ball rather than supervising every muscle.
This supports concentration in sport and helps the player move from controlling the body to delivering the ball.
6. Practise the Response to a Yip
The player also needs a response to an awkward release: pause, release tension, avoid emergency changes and return to one clear intention.
Learning to recover after mistakes prevents one delivery becoming the meaning of the entire session.
How Mindset Coaching May Help
Mindset coaching may help when fear, anticipation, conscious control and performance anxiety maintain the pattern. Work may identify the response before disruption, reduce the threat of an imperfect release, simplify attention, prepare for being watched and rebuild sports confidence from progressive evidence.
Inner Voice Awareness™ may be particularly relevant when the final seconds of the action contain conflicting commands such as “let go”, “do not drag it down” and “everyone is watching”.
Relaxation, imagery, hypnosis or other psychological methods may sometimes form part of an individual plan, but none should be presented as a guaranteed cure. A 2024 systematic review of treatments for task-specific dystonia in sport found that the overall quality of treatment evidence was low. That uncertainty supports coordinated, individual assessment rather than one fashionable answer.
Technical, Psychological and Medical Support
A joined-up approach may involve a cricket coach for the action and practice design, a mindset coach or sport psychologist for pressure, a physiotherapist for pain or injury, and a doctor or neurologist where involuntary movement suggests a medical component. Distress extending beyond performance may require a qualified mental-health professional.
The yips are not proof of weakness. Nor should every case be declared “all in the mind”.
Coach’s Insight
The player often asks:
How can I guarantee that my arm will release the ball?
A more useful question may be:
How can I make the movement feel safe enough to attempt without supervising it completely?
Natural action cannot usually be forced back through more fear. It is rebuilt through clarity, suitable challenge and permission to move.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can bowling yips begin suddenly?
Yes. Some players report a gradual loss of control, while others connect the problem with one highly stressful or embarrassing performance.
Why can I bowl alone but not when somebody watches?
Being observed adds consequence and self-awareness. This can increase tension and conscious control even when the underlying action remains available.
Should I keep bowling until it goes away?
Not automatically. Unstructured repetition can strengthen fear, encourage technical searching or create excessive physical workload. Practice should have a clear purpose and appropriate support.
Can hypnotherapy or mindset coaching cure the yips?
Psychological work may help when anxiety, anticipation or conscious interference contribute. No responsible practitioner should guarantee a cure, and possible technical, physical or neurological factors must not be ignored.
How long does recovery take?
There is no reliable universal timescale. The type of symptoms, their history and the support required differ from player to player.
Trusting the Release Again
Bowling and throwing yips can make an experienced cricketer frightened of a movement they have completed thousands of times.
Progress begins by replacing judgement with investigation. The player can then rebuild the action at an appropriate level, transfer it gradually into pressure and learn that one disrupted release does not erase every step forward.
The broader work may include reducing fear of failure, rebuilding trust in training and reconnecting with the wider demands of cricket performance psychology.
The goal is not to forget that the yips ever happened. It is to stop organising every future delivery around the fear that they might happen again.
Cricket Yips Coaching in Reading and Online
Matthew Exell provides sports mindset coaching for cricketers in Reading, Berkshire, as well as online across the UK and internationally. Support may be helpful when bowling or throwing has become affected by freezing, release difficulties, conscious control or fear of the next attempt. Coaching can explore the situations that trigger the disruption, reduce the shame surrounding it and support a carefully graded return to pressure. However, cricket yips should not automatically be treated as anxiety. Technical, physical and occasionally neurological factors may require appropriate professional assessment. Mindset coaching can form part of that wider approach, particularly when anticipation and overthinking in sport are reinforcing the pattern.
Call +44 07807 540142 or email me