Upton, who had four fruitful years from 2008 to 2011 under gary kirsten is back at Dravid’s insistence and will now help elite Indian players tackle the pressure cooker scenario heading into the T20 World Cup in Australia.
“With so much cricket being played, the mental health side of cricket is very important and having a resource like him (Upton) will really come in handy for the group,” said Dravid. BCCI.TV.
Dravid also feels Upton’s familiarity with the Indian cricket set-up will come in handy.
.@PaddyUpton1 is back with #TeamIndia as Mental Conditioning Coach. 👍 👍Here’s what he had to say about his role with… https://t.co/RUWLTm2bNA
— BCCI (@BCCI) 1658915135000
“Traveling as international cricketers, we understand the mental side of the game and we are lucky to have someone like Paddy because he has the experience of being with the Indian team during the 2011 World Cup and even a bit before that.
“The most important thing is that he (Upton) is familiar with most of the Indian players who have worked with them at IPL level or in the Indian team.
“He is familiar with our culture and how the Indian team works. It seemed like a good fit for us to draw on his knowledge as we look to build the team for the World Cup,” Dravid added.
My role is to create an environment for players to grow: Upton
Upton, who has had his own unique personal skills in dealing with individual players, wants to be seen as an enabler of players’ optimum level of performance in high-level competition.
“Everyone has a natural motivational flow and part of my role is to help people find that natural motivational flow and for that we need to establish an environment that allows people to be themselves and thrive,” Upton said.
To prove his point, he gave an analogy of how a gardener needs to create fertile soil to grow beautiful flowers.
“If I give a simple analogy to growing beautiful flowers, the gardener needs to create fertile soil. As coaches, our role is to create a fertile environment that helps our players grow naturally and reach their full potential on and off the field.” Upton added.
According to Upton, if the team has a lot of head space, performances will flow naturally.
“If the team is in a big space, the performances will flow naturally. What we need to do is remove the obstacles in those performances, individually and from a team perspective,” Upton added.
“The mental side of the game hasn’t changed much, but what has changed is the Covid experience and a lot of players have been on the road many times, so there’s an added element of trying to get each individual player as well as the team as a team. all in the best possible space.
‘Dravid and I are talking about cricket, life and spirituality since ’96’
Upton first met Dravid in 1996 when strength and conditioning coaches were out of fashion and on his first tour of South Africa, he wanted to know the brains of the former.
“He (Dravid) has always been someone who is so hungry to learn, not just about the game of cricket because he is a teacher when it comes to the game of cricket, but about life and everything beyond cricket.
“We have been in conversations about life, cricket and spirituality since 1996. We picked up when we joined the Indian team in 2008 with Gary Kirsten.
“So I’ve been in these conversations for a long time and it’s very exciting to have those conversations every day and hopefully it will help prepare this Indian team for an amazing T20 World Cup,” Upton signed.
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