Mike Averis Meets the England Cricket Team's Psychologist

Steve Bull has a busy week ahead of him. Tonight, the England cricket team's psychologist will travel to Old Trafford to offer his services to the players before the third Test against West Indies - and if Ashley Giles's rejuvenated form is anything to go by, his influence on them should not be underestimated.

Then, at the weekend, Bull will swap sporting hats and fly out to Athens to assume his role as coordinator of the seven psychologists working with the British Olympic team, remaining there for the duration of the games. "It's an interesting week, that's true," a reticent Bull concedes.

This week Giles spoke about Bull's influence in changing his life - turning the Warwickshire spinner from a man whose "mind was about to explode" into the confident, happy hero who has claimed 18 wickets in the first two Tests against West Indies.

Giles requested a "chat" with Bull before the Trent Bridge Test against New Zealand. At the time he was seriously thinking about giving up Test cricket because of the vilification dished out by the press and fans.

"When the Kiwis battered me around straight away at Lord's [it] was quite a low," said Giles. "During that Test I was sitting next to Nasser Hussain in the dressing room and I said to him: 'I'm not sure how much longer I can do this'."

Bull advised Giles to write a diary. "It was all reaffirmation about how good you are and what you can do for the team," said Giles. "It was about writing positive things, about where I want to be."

Back at Lord's, this time against West Indies, Giles was man of the match. He is immensely grateful to Bull. The psychologist, though, is pretty secretive about his "customers". "I have a rule of thumb," he says, "which is that I don't comment about individuals that I'm currently working with because the nature of the relationship is the key."

Bull hints that Giles is not the first to benefit since he began working with England in the difficult days of 1997. "There have been lots of ups and lots of downs. It's been an interesting and challenging journey," he says. "Over the last few years you can map out the progress, although there have been a few blips on the way."

Although he will not say so directly, Bull clearly is an admirer of the England coach Duncan Fletcher. "If you are talking about understanding people, communicating with people, motivating people and understanding the mind, then yes he is very good," says Bull, who will be at England practice tomorrow.

"There's nothing particularly formal. Every so often I just hang around for a couple of days and chat with some of the guys and keep in touch. If people want to talk then they can. Sometimes we may arrange a meeting in advance but a lot of the conversations are informal, over a cup of coffee.

"People expect some kind of formulaic answer to how a sports psychologist works but it's incredibly varied; the nature of the intervention is very individualistic and variable according to the situation. It's very hard to say what we do, bop, bop, bop."

Bull initially trained as a physical education teacher but after two years he took himself off to Canada in the mid-80s. He returned to do a PhD in applied psychology and in 1988 worked with Gary Shopland, the ultra-marathon runner who was planning a 500-mile, 20-day canter through Death Valley and the deserts of Arizona.

The next sporting customer was the England women's cricket team and his 10 years working with them overlapped his stint with the British Olympic Association - starting with the winter sports team and the Lillehammer games of 1994.

In 2000 he coordinated the team of psychologists in Sydney, the same job he will be doing for the duration of the Athens games.

"The Olympics is by far the most stressful and pressurised sports event in the world so coaches, athletes and team managers are under pressure, and when people are under pressure things can go a little bit haywire in terms of relationships and communication."

Britain did not turn to people such as Bull until Barcelona in 1992, but the US had a sports psychologist on board as long ago as 1976. Bull believes the importance of psychology has increased as the margins of victory have got smaller. "If you look at tennis these days it is perfectly conceivable for a player ranked 150 in the world to beat a player who is in the top five. There are plenty of examples. Twenty, 30, 40 years ago it didn't happen.

"The difference between the top five and the top 100 is actually not that great so on the day, if you don't get your psychology right, you can miss out."

If Britain are to come home with a decent haul of medals, Bull's team will obviously have to work overtime. However, he will not face one of the challenges of Sydney, where he worked with the dressage section of the equestrian team.

"There you are obviously helping the riders with their minds, but you also have this other mind - which brings an altogether different dimension."

It makes preparing an buoyant English bowler to face Brian Lara sound like child's play.