The Papua New Guinea cricket team has been working with a psychologist as they attempt to diagnose a major stumbling block in the international arena.
The Barramundi's missed out on a spot at next year's World Twenty20 tournament after losing their winner-takes-all qualifying match against Afghanistan in July.
The same thing happened two years ago, when they were beaten by Hong Kong.
PNG have begun the defence of their South Australian Cricket League title. Photo: Cricket PNG
Head coach Dipak Patel says they've spent a lot of time dissecting what went wrong and how to fix it.
"Majority it's just been reflecting and doing debriefs and reviews and trying to find reasons why we keep falling short. We've had a fair bit to do with that and I think we're getting sort of close to understanding how these guys, mentally and physically, cope with the demands of international cricket and I thought that was very important. There was a lot of hard work put into that: we've done a lot of team building sessions, we've done a lot of stuff with a psychologist and we've looked at different avenues to try and get these guys to understand the demands of the schedules that they're going to be exposed to over the next few years".
The PNG team is currently competing in the South Australian Premier League, where they've so far won one and lost three matches in the 50 over competition.
