An up-and-coming player, representing England but not yet established, goes to the World Cup for the first time. This is it: the big stage, the chance to make a name. It goes pretty well – a good fifty, top score in a narrow defeat, followed by a first international hundred, which turns a classic England collapse into a cakewalk. For the team, things go less well. “I’d done OK,” says the player, many years later. “I’d cemented my position, but we didn’t even make the semi.” The experience prompts some hard thinking. “I watched the World Cup final, and I was convinced that I wanted to be the best batsman in the world. I came home and made that statement to my coach and myself.”

In the 2019 Wisden Almanack, Tim de Lisle explained the various types of motivation that cricketers encounter during their careers.

So that was Claire Taylor’s motivation, for years, after the 2000 World Cup: to be No. 1. “In 2005, in South Africa, I was going to prove it. England were going to lift the World Cup, everyone was going to be a hero. I had an OK tournament, but we got a semi-final at Potch, spicy pitch, we were three down in the first few overs, I got nicked off by Fitzpatrick.” For a duck. “That properly burst my bubble.”

She had given up the day job, taken an 80 per cent pay cut and moved back in with her mother. “I went back to my old coach and my old technique, and I started trying to be better motivated by what I could do for the team. Instead of trying to dominate, I tried to anchor.” In case she forgot this, she would write “anchor” on the inside of her forearm. “My motivation changed markedly: it became much more intrinsic. With hindsight – and this is all a narrative that we create around our careers – by focusing on what the team needed, I was taking care of myself.” When the ICC launched women’s ODI rankings in 2008, she was No.1. A year later, she became the first woman to be picked as one of Wisden’s Five.

Fun is the simplest motivation, the most childlike; but it also chimes with academic thinking on the subject. Claire Taylor, who now gives talks about getting the best out of yourself, mentions Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian-American professor of psychology whose theme is that motivation should come from within. “He’s written about the zone and flow,” Taylor says. “The aim is to get into a flow-like state – you don’t become nervous, and you lose yourself in the performance. He’s for intrinsic motivation: the outcome is less important than the process.” In other words, come on fellas, forget about the mortgage, let’s have some fun.

Tim de Lisle, a former editor of Wisden, is the author of How to Write Well.