'He was just stood on the crease, and it wasn’t like dead serious, but I had my bat there and I was just staring at him!'
What's the tried and tested routine that helps you focus before and during sport?
For Stuart Broad, it's a case of doing things in threes. Lots of things in threes, in fact, from aftershave sprays to practice deliveries to marking the crease before he bowls.
For Ben Stokes, it's a bit less complex - but still important to his mindset.
The England captain and 4CAST founder has a very specific routine when he bats, and it went pretty much unnoticed - until a certain Australian spinner clocked it during the 2015 Ashes series.
Ben takes up the story of how his method was rudely interrupted:
"So my thing is, and it's nowhere near as extreme as Broady's, by the way... I've got this thing at the end of the over.
"Whatever end I’m at - it doesn’t matter - when the umpire calls 'over', I'll put my bat in the crease and then swipe it across, regardless.
"But in 2015, in the Ashes series actually, we were playing against Australia and I think it might have been at Cardiff... Nathan Lyon picked up on it.
"I was at the non-striker's end, so he bowled his last ball of his over and obviously he's there, and he's picked up on it, so he's just stood on the crease, and we're like, it wasn’t like dead serious, but I had my bat there and I was just staring at him.
"I'm not blinking, and then eventually he gave in and then I did it. But [Nathan] picked up on that kind of thing.
"And again, like with Broady, it's like, I HAVE to do this. It's one of those things where if I don’t do it, it’s psychologically like 'I've not completed my preparation.'"
Watch the video to see Ben, Stuart and Josh Denzel in conversation.
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