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Many sports are shifting to shared leadership models, but cricket remains somewhat wedded to traditional models of leadership. Female cricket especially might challenge this traditional model. Understanding how players and coaches have similar, or differing, views can inform how to implement contemporary leadership models into cricket and extend conceptions of athlete leadership. Therefore, this study examined how the coach and players have similar or differing understandings of shared athlete leadership in their cricket team. An interpretative phenomenological analysis approach was adopted. Semistructured interviews were conducted with three female cricket players and their male coach. Results suggest that the coach and players value the social leadership skills of the captain more than the task leadership skills, whereas informal athlete leaders are relied on by the captain to provide tactical guidance. Nonetheless, there were different expectations regarding the role of athlete leaders. While the coach expected athlete leaders to deliver his message to the rest of the team, players wanted athlete leaders who maintained lines of communication among the players, and with the coach. Therefore, this study offers another perspective on leadership that is fluid and promotes collaboration to appoint and develop appropriate leaders who are accepted by all team members.

Purpose: Mental fatigue causes decreases in aspects of athletes’ performance. Elite coaches commonly undertake cognitively demanding tasks and are seemingly at similar risk of subsequent performance impairment. However, elite sport coaches’ experiences of mental fatigue, alongside other markers of psychobiological stress, have yet to be quantified. Methods: Three elite coaching and performance staff (2 women and 1 man) provided 100-mm visual analog scale ratings of mental fatigue, physical fatigue, readiness to perform, and salivary samples for later cortisol (sCort) and alpha-amylase (sAA) analysis. Data were obtained on the same morning each week across a 16-week preseason. Data were subset by individual coach for descriptive and repeated-measures correlational analyses. Results: Fluctuating mental fatigue was observed over the 16 weeks (min–max; coach 1 = 25–86 AU; coach 2 = 0–51 AU; and coach 3 = 15 − 76 AU). Elevated levels of mental fatigue were reported at multiple time points, with individual variability observed. sCort (in nanomoles per liter), sAA (in micromoles per liter), and sAA:sCort indicated that coaches experienced psychophysiological stress (min–max; coach 1 sCort = 8.42–17.31, sAA = 52.40–113.06, sAA:sCort = 3.20–12.80; coach 2 sCort = 4.20–9.70, sAA = 158.80–307.20, sAA:sCort = 21.10–61.70; and coach 3 sCort = 6.81−19.66, sAA = 86.55–495.85, sAA:sCort = 4.90–35.50). A significant inverse relationship between mental fatigue and readiness to perform (r = −.44 [−.64 to −.17], P = .002) was identified. Conclusions: Elite sport coaches report elevated instances of mental fatigue during a preseason training period. Those involved in elite sports should act to understand the presence and potential subsequent impacts of staff mental fatigue and consider management or mitigation strategies. Optimization of the cognitive performance of coaches and performance staff presents as a potential source of competitive advantage.