|Nasser's cricketing mind games|
|Around the Academy:
Almost everything about cricket is played in the head.
I prepare myself through visualisation, like watching a video of the opposition and getting to grips with their bowlers.
I'll also concentrate on getting my heartbeat down and relaxing.
I get very nervous before I go out to bat.
I try to kid myself that it's just another game, that's it's not that important an innings when I really know it is, be it for Essex or England.
So you play mind games with yourself to get into the right frame of thinking so you can play to the best of your abilities.
My nerves usually start to kick in on the morning of the match, which for me is the hardest time.
Waiting to go out and bat is also difficult. It adds to the nerves sitting in the dressing room watching whoever's batting.
But I've found I've played my best innings when we've lost a few early wickets - I haven't got time to get nervous waiting to bat.
For me, to get into good batting form, I need fluency.
I need to keep batting, whether it's in the nets or out in the middle, to get into my batting groove.
With fluency comes confidence, another important factor in the mind games of cricket.
If I'm ever out of form, a lot of it's about confidence.
I need to go back to basics in the nets to get everything right so I can go out there and score runs.
Getting a good innings out in the middle is, to me, the same as a week's worth of batting in the nets.