'Mental strength is about not being afraid to make mistakes'
Kumar Sangakkara talks about Sri Lanka's problems performing in finals of big tournaments
The mood has always been very good. We've always been motivated for finals. We haven't made a big deal about talking about the finals, but I've gone in with the approach to the final that we have with the rest of the tournament, so the mood in the camp has always been the same. But in a way you do feel tense, more nervous - you have butterflies in your stomach a bit more that day.
No, it's not a sense of fear. We've never had a fear of playing a final. That's what we train for. The one thing we haven't done is express our fears, or whatever our feelings are, fully before a final - especially the day before and the two or three days leading up to the final.
I think there are lots of aspects to it. We're not a very expressive people when it comes to our fears. We express a lot of joy. We express various other emotions, but talking about insecurities, fears or personal issues out in the open is not something that we're very used to. It's not something we intentionally do, especially in an environment like sport, where you're supposed to be tough.
At the back of your head you know it's a final. You know what winning it means. You know what it means for yourself and the team and the people supporting you. Having lost World Cup finals, you know what it is like.
I think mentally it's always been about practice, and then getting on with the job.
"We're not a very expressive people when it comes to our fears. We express a lot of joy. We express various other emotions, but talking about insecurities, fears or personal issues out in the open is not something that we're very used to"
It's an ongoing discussion. One of the key issues is finding people who are able to communicate fully with the team and who the team can communicate fully with. So it's important to have someone who can speak Sinhalese and Tamil fully. All the boys converse in English and they can get their point across, but when they talk about emotions they have to be comfortable with the language they speak. It is something that we've spoken to management about and they are looking at. Hopefully by the next series.
Yeah, I guess it could be the fact that you're so afraid of losing the final that it can actually contribute to you doing badly.
No, I don't think we spoke about our previous finals. When I was playing I wasn't thinking about the final before. Actually, to be honest with you, I did think it was an opportunity. "We've had three, so maybe this was a great opportunity for us, so let's grab it." You can't be too eager at times so you need to balance that out. We really need to talk about it being a final. The more you try to ignore it, the more you think about it. We need to find a way to deal with it.
I think the process for them is the same as a club game. If you're good enough to get here, let's spend your first tour really being comfortable with what you're doing, knowing that you've done the hard yards. Don't be too eager but also don't be too scared. You've got to strike that balance mentally, just thinking about what you've got to do.
We've talked about it among ourselves but never as an exercise of shedding the baggage and moving on. Again, there are professionals who can lead you down that path effectively. It's not something that you learn how to do naturally. You need to do this with big kinds of failures in a way that will help you grow. We need to have a post-final environment where whether you win or lose, there needs to be a debrief at the end of the game.
You feel inadequate, you feel ashamed, you feel like you've let so many people down - not just yourself but your family. And you always think about the people who've watched you play. You feel disappointed, you don't feel any motivation for a while. There are so many feelings that are within you and it's really hard to express all of it. You have a period of introspection where you think, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with us? Why can't we convert?" We try to find answers and then at one point you reach a stage where [even] if you don't find an answer, you are able to go on in a manner that helps you to perform afterwards. But you know the baggage remains and next time you approach a final, that baggage can make a difference between winning or losing. They are problems we need to address very, very strongly.
No, it feels the same. When you revisit the finals, the feelings always come rushing back and you feel exactly how you felt after the final. You remember and think, "What if? What if you'd done that?" So you keep it, something you'll never forget. It doesn't matter even 20 years after - those emotions will still run through you exactly in that fresh manner that you experienced.
Hope is a very dangerous thing, but it's a very important thing. When you're playing in a final it's not really hope, it's almost a delivered certainty at times, where you think, "This is our game and we are going to win it." When you've done all of that and you lose, it's a much worse feeling than going out earlier in the tournament. When we went out in the first T20 World Cup that we played, we went out in the second round and disappointment was huge but still not as huge as losing a final. There's no comparison between the stages of the tournament. There's a huge difference between the semi-final and the final. It's a very tough place to be, not just for players but even for spectators. The fact that you've come this far. You've won every game so far, so why couldn't you win the most important game?
No, I think the approach is the same. It's a slow build-up. You build momentum throughout the tournament. We just have to wait and see if we will get to a final and see how we feel then.
Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo's Sri Lanka correspondent. He tweets here