Sydney Thunder captain Daniel Smith believes constant criticism of his team's batting line-up had them questioning themselves in a 91-run loss to the Brisbane Heat in the Twenty20 Big Bash League.
Chasing 196 for an unlikely win at the Gabba on Tuesday, the Thunder struggled to 6-104 from their 20 overs.
Opener Chris Gayle, who has scored the second most runs in the league this season, fell for a golden duck with the visitors never looking likely in their chase.
The Thunder had been labelled a one-man team and too reliant on Gayle, and Smith said that may have played on their minds in the lacklustre batting performance.
"It's funny. All our batters - throughout the whole tournament - have been written off and sledged and abused and said they're not good enough, we're a one-man team," Smith said after the loss.
"If you hear it over and over and over again, sooner or later, you're going to start to believe it. You're going to walk out there doubting yourself."
"We've got a lot of quality, good young cricketers in that team and blokes that have done well at domestic cricket level. If you're getting slagged off time and time again, something's got to give."
Usman Khawaja (37), Matthew Day (unbeaten 29) and Sean Abbott (22 not out) were the only Thunder batsmen to reach double figures.
Daniel Christian had smashed an unbeaten 75 off 47 balls to put Heat in a strong position, but Smith said he was confident of chasing down the target at the change of innings.
"It only takes a couple of blokes to go off, get off to a good start, and anything's possible - especially here at the Gabba, where the ball normally comes on pretty good and there's a short side," he said.
"We were confident that if we went out and got off to a good start that we'd be a chance, unfortunately that good start didn't happen and the rest was history."
Thunder's season came to an end with the loss, and they are sitting bottom of the table.