David Leggat: Cricketers can take a leaf from Ulmer

How much of being a top sports performer is mental and how much physical?

Opinions vary about the part the top two inches play in distinguishing the good from the great.

Yogi Berra, a legendary New York Yankees baseballer of the 1950s and 60s, had a gift for mangling his metaphors.

"Baseball is 90 per cent mental," he observed. "The other half is physical."

The thought occurred while contemplating two events this week: the crowning of Sarah Ulmer as the Halberg Supreme Award winner for her golden cycling year, and the belting taken by the New Zealand cricketers at the hands of Australia in Christchurch.

On one hand, there is an individual athlete who blended physical supremacy with a fierce single-mindedness to succeed.

She did it not once but twice in winning the world individual pursuit title, riding quicker than any woman before her, then broke her own mark twice on her way to Olympic glory three months later.

Then we have a cricket team whose record in the last year is impressive, 19 wins in 23 completed one-day internationals, on their way to sitting second on the world rankings.

Now, the one team above them pitched up here last week. Since then, New Zealand lost a match in Wellington by 10 runs, a contest they should have won - and which their opponents would have pocketed at least nine times out of 10 if the situation had been reversed - before being pummelled in Christchurch.

They lost the Wellington match because at the precise time cool heads and clear thinking were required, New Zealand's batsmen lost theirs.

So sports psychologist Gilbert Enoka was called in to help ahead of today's third ODI at Eden Park. Enoka pops up all over the place, like a portable bandaid for teams in need of some mental massaging.

Does it work? It depends on an individual perspective.

Ulmer doesn't appeal as someone who'd spend long lying on any analyst's couch.

Our cricketers are like a trotter who has broken at the start and is watching his rivals disappear round the first bend.

Their task is to avoid a mental meltdown. They'll argue with conviction they are still one of cricket's best limited-overs teams, who have been put through the hoop by a richly talented, supremely confident side. No more, no less.

There are three ODIs and three tests to come. If they can't get their heads in the right place - and cope with the physical challenge - it'll be a long month ahead.

Ulmer's next big challenge is coming up, and it's nothing to do with pedalling round an oval track. That's child's play compared with deciding whether to carry on for next year's Commonwealth Games and from there the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, or retire.

She's given herself until April next month to decide. Physically it's not an issue. Her tenacity to achieve her goals will see to that. Rather it's making the call: does she want to go through it all again to try to do something she's already accomplished?

Ulmer did everything she set out to last year. Where does she go from here? She can do nothing more, other than repeat what she's already done.

Is that sufficient motivation? There's only one person who knows the answer and she's not telling.

But listening to her acceptance speech at the Halberg Awards on Thursday night, if you were looking for a sign, it was possible to pick up an inference that enough is enough.

Which, if they are not careful, might be what our cricketers are pleading by the end of next month.