Every time England seamer Liam Plunkett wants inspiration, he just reaches for his iPod.
The England cricket team has downloaded clips of the greatest moments of its players on to their digital music players and portable-game consoles, as well as their laptops.
Plunkett’s inspiration is the dismissal of Australia opener Adam Gilchrist with the first ball of the innings in England’s 92-run win in the tri-series limited-overs match on February 2. That led to England’s series title — and Plunkett admits he has watched that at least 20 times.
”I’ve watched the Gilchrist wicket plenty of times,” Plunkett said on Tuesday. ”It’s such a good feeling watching the ball come out of your hand right and land in the right area and, looking back at that, it gives you massive confidence by taking you back.”
The technology has been a big success since it was introduced to the players last week.
”They can put all sorts of different things on there,” Plunkett said. ”If Ian Bell wants to see how Daniel Vettori grips the ball before the New Zealand game, he can go to his iPod or his computer.
”Kevin Pietersen might want to look at himself scoring a century or something like that to give him a bit of confidence,” Plunkett joked. ”Not that he needs it!”
Mark Garaway, the England team analyst, said the portable nature of the technology made it so useful.
”It just means they can look at it wherever they are,” Garaway said. ”We’re just trying to use other bits of technology that are already out there which people are using for different things and tailoring it to help what we do.”
England are preparing for their opening World Cup match against New Zealand on Friday. They also play Kenya and Canada in Group C. — Sapa-AP