Michael Clarke turns to childhood mentor for help!

Melbourne: Struggling Australian stand-in skipper Michael Clarke has turned to his childhood mentor and Indian-Origin coach Neil DCosta in a bid to revive his batting form ahead of the upcoming World Cup in the sub-continent.

The move comes a day after national selector and former India coach Greg Chappell publicly backed the batsman to return to his best.

Emphasising on the three successive victories in the ongoing series against England, DCosta has told his protg to relax and start focusing on his game as Australia seems to be back on track.

A lot of captains, at different times... they dont put their gas mask on first, the Indian origin coach said.

Theyre running around trying to fit everybody elses gas mask. I feel as though, with the team back winning, he can get a little bit of oxygen in his lungs and settle back in his innings and we can see some runs, DCosta told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Clarke has scored just 193 runs at an average of 21.44 during the recent Ashes loss to England and hardly showed any signs of revival during the first three ODIs of the ongoing series.

DCosta however disagreed that captaincy had distracted Clarke saying, I dont think its the captaincy weighing him down. Its a matter of prioritising. He cannot stand the team losing. He just hates it. Thats how most captains are around the world. What happens with captains is theyre searching for what can make his team go in the right direction, DCosta added.

The coach, however, reiterated that since the Kangaroos are back to winning, Clarke will soon return to form.

The teams started to win and, as a cap! tain, th at will make him feel that other guys are starting to be a bit more confident in their game. They seem to be a bit more confident.

There seems to be more guys contributing.

The fielding seems to have improved quite a lot, their catching has improved quite a lot in a short space of time.

So some confidence has started coming back to the side and with that well start to see the captain starting to make some runs as well, the coach insisted.

Endorsing David Husseys view that the captain was trying too hard, DCosta said, Hes looking for runs rather than letting the runs come.

As a player youre desperate to score runs. Right now hes trying too hard when he bats. Things go wrong when you try too hard. If you just let it flow, things start to fall into place, DCosta added.

DCosta also supported Clarkes view that his problems were not technical.

Everyone seems to keep attacking his technical features. Its not always technical, its an extremely mental game.

PTI