Objectives: The significance of maintaining high frequencies of communication between team-mates present conflicting results. This report provides a more invasive analysis of communication behaviors that enhance strategic efficacy of team-mate interactions during play, including, empirically-based communication recommendations for team-leaders and coaches. Design: Both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was used to examine elite counterstrike-players’ communications during defensive play at tournament level. Method: Play was video, and audio recorded then coded for frequency of different types of communication. Data were initially analysed for comparative frequency between successful and unsuccessful segments of play. Secondary analysis examined the predictive ability of individual communicative categories on successful outcomes of play. Results: Descriptive statistics indicate that higher frequencies of communication between team-members occurred when the team successfully won the round. Follow up examination revealed that Motivational, Tactical and Team-leader Motivational communication successfully predicted won rounds, including, instances of tactical talk that were subsequently verbally responded to by the directed team-mate.