Australia's one-day captain Aaron Finch wants his beleaguered batsmen to ignore the gloom.
The Australians enter Friday's fixture against South Africa in Adelaide on a seven-match losing streak in one-day internationals.
And the batting line-up enters with much public doubt after crumbling to 152 all out against the Proteas in a series-opening loss last Sunday.
Finch admits frequent recent collapses could be taking a toll on the psyche of his batting line-up.
"At times it has probably affected guys," he said.
"No doubt, it has been a concern in both shorter formats.
"To get bowled out a couple of times in the UAE and then bowled out again the other day, it has been a bit of a theme unfortunately that we haven't batted our allotted overs a lot."
Finch said finding a solution was two-fold.
One, he said, was "summing up the conditions and using a little bit more cricket smarts".
"There might be times when you have to go away from your natural game and play a little bit more of a defensive-type brand in terms of just getting through for time," Finch said.
Two, bat in partnerships.
"It's about getting back to the basics of partnerships and making sure that you connect with your partner when you first get out there," he said.
"You know the first 10 or 15 balls of anyone's innings is when your most vulnerable.
"So to just start the basics really well, just get that five, 10 run partnership - or if you go by balls, it might just be 10 balls between you and start to build that.
"When we talk about confidence in the batting group, it's about not letting outside distractions affect your game.
"And there has been a lot of media about Cricket Australia; there's a lot of media about our batting.
"But if you can put that to one side and focus on the next ball and really make sure that you're committed to watching the ball and being 100 per cent committed to your partnership, I think that will go a long way to turning things around quickly."
Australian Associated Press
