Boot camp for cricketers pitched to restore morale Former Australian coach John Buchanan, left, celebrates winning the World Cup with bowler Glenn McGrath back in 2007. Picture: Colleen Petch. A FORMER Special Forces soldier involved in John Buchanan's controversial 2006 boot camp has offered to help Australia's wayward cricket team recapture a killer edge. Security consultant David Apps, an ex-British SAS instructor, is starting negotiations with Cricket Australia to stage a two-day leadership and training boot camp in the UK before the Ashes series. Apps worked on the Buchanan boot camp, where Australia's cricketers were put under severe stress in torturous team challenges while trekking through the rugged Sunshine Coast hinterland. Apps, who ran a camp for Australia's youth cricketers before last year's under-19 World Cup in Townsville, has received an encouraging response from senior CA officials on his proposal to run a pre-Ashes camp. Embattled Aussies fly in a shrink Apps believes a boot camp could help rebuild the Australian team's culture after the shock of four player sackings in India. "These camps are run by ex-Special Forces personnel who have the ability to know how to get the best out of players in often challenging and arduous conditions," Apps told The Courier-Mail. Activities include physically demanding activities to speed up the fatigue process before they are then given challenges and tasks in which one needs to make quick, precise and clear decisions in order to achieve the team objective. It is also useful to have players making quick, accurate decisions out of their comfort zones while tired and under duress. These methods are tried and tested and while we are not there to teach them how to play cricket, we can certainly add our value in the decision-making processes and way of thinking in order to assist them. In 2006 under former coach Buchanan, Australia's elite players were taken out of their comfort zone and deprived of food, sleep and water in the camp which was designed to foster teamwork. Leg-spinners Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill, who was injured during the camp, were highly critical of Buchanan, but many players responded positively and said the camp was a valuable springboard to a 5-0 Ashes whitewash a few months later. Yesterday, Buchanan said his 2006 camp had proved highly valuable. "I was confident as it was well planned, in the hands of professional providers who clearly understood the outcomes required, and I knew the team culture and personnel needed 'looking at ourselves in the mirror'," he said.