Mental well being being vital, useful resource like Paddy Upton might be useful: Rahul Dravid

Paddy Upton’s huge reservoir of data might be an immensely helpful “resource” at a time when psychological well being of cricketers is changing into paramount in a choc-a-bloc worldwide cricket calender, feels India head coach Rahul Dravid.

Upton, who had 4 fruitful years from 2008 to 2011 below Gary Kirsten is again at Dravid’s insistence and can now assist the elite Indian gamers cope up with stress cooker state of affairs going into T20 World Cup in Australia.

“With so much cricket being played mental health side of cricket is very important and having a resource like him (Upton) will really be helpful to the group,” Dravid informed BCCI.Tv.

Say Hello 👋🏻 to our Mental Conditioning Coach – Mr. Paddy Upton 😃#StaffIndia 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/KEjpnXuC81

— BCCI (@BCCI) July 26, 2022

Dravid additionally feels that Upton’s familiarity with Indian cricket set-up will show to be useful.

“Travelling as players in international cricket, we do understand the mental side of the game and we are lucky to get someone like Paddy on board because he has that experience of being with Indian team during 2011 World Cup and even a little before that.”

“Most importantly he (Upton) is familiar with most Indian players having worked with them at IPL level or in Indian team.”

“He is familiar with our culture and how the Indian team functions. (It) seemed like a really good fit for us, to tap into his knowledge as we look to build the team for the World Cup,” added Dravid.

.@PaddyUpton1 is again with #StaffIndia as psychological conditioning coach. 👍 👍

Here’s what he needed to say about his function with the group & his bond with Head Coach Rahul Dravid as he begins his stint with the group. 👌 👌 – By @28anand

Watch 🎥 🔽 #WIvIND pic.twitter.com/IYU8pCEKQj

— BCCI (@BCCI) July 27, 2022

“Everybody has a natural motivational flow and part of my role is to help individuals find that natural motivation flow and for that we need to set up an environment that allows people to be themselves and to flourish,” Upton mentioned.

To show his level, he gave an analogy of how a gardener must create a fertile land to develop stunning flowers.

“If I give a simple analogy is to grow beautiful flowers, the gardener needs to create a fertile land. As coaches, our role is to create a fertile environment which helps our players to naturally grow and reach their fullest potential on and off the field,” added Upton.

According to Upton, if the group is in nice psychological area, performances will naturally circulation in.

“If team is in great space performances are naturally going to flow. What we need to do is remove obstacles in those performances, individually and from team perspectives,” added Upton.

“Mental aspect of the sport hasn’t modified loads however what has modified is Covid expertise and lot of gamers have been on street lot of the occasions, so there may be an additional aspect of making an attempt to get every particular person participant in addition to group as an entire in greatest area potential.

Me and Dravid are speaking about cricket, life and spirituality since ’96 Upton first met Dravid in 1996 when Strength and Codnitioning coaches weren’t in vogue and on his first tour of South Africa, he wished to select the previous’s mind.

“He (Dravid) has all the time been somebody with such a starvation to study, not simply round recreation of cricket as a result of he’s a professor with regards to recreation of cricket however about life and every part past cricket.

“We have been in dialog about life, cricket, spirituality since 1996. We picked up once more once we joined the Indian group in 2008 with Gary Kirsten.

“So I have been in these conversations for a long time and super exciting to have those conversations every day and hopefully it goes towards setting up this Indian team for an unbelievable T20 World Cup,” Upton signed off.