Taking a mental note of the game
Paddy Upton’s appointment once again underlines the need to monitor mental wellness.
Paddy Upton has been roped in as India’s mental conditioning coach. He joined the squad during the ODI series in West Indies and is expected to work with the players in the lead-up to the T20 World Cup in Australia this October-November. The appointment doesn’t come as a surprise considering Upton was part of the support staff when India won the 2011 World Cup. Since then Upton has been part of the South Africa team that became No 1 in Tests in 2013 before going on to mentor and coach several franchise T20 league teams, including Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Capitals, Sydney Thunder and Lahore Qalandars.
India chief coach Rahul Dravid has worked with Upton before. Dravid is someone who, according to physiotherapist John Gloster, “sees the big picture” and wants players to focus on “the little things around cricket” and is clearly keen on Upton keeping the players in the right frame of mind before the T20 World Cup. But should mental wellness be addressed only before a major tournament? Or should it be a year-round priority?
Sports psychology and mental wellness are not new concepts. The Brazil football team during the 1958 World Cup had among its ranks Professor João Carvalhaes who had introduced psychometric tests to South American club football almost 30 years before European football embraced psychological evaluation of players as a necessity. Just before the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Germany flew in Mike Horn, a South African explorer, for a motivational session.
Horn took the team sailing, regaling them with stories of human endurance and mental resilience. A month later, Germany won the final, beating Argentina 1-0. When Ivan Lendl lost three consecutive US Open finals in 1985, he sought help from renowned therapist Alexis Castorri. Lendl went on to win the next three US Open finals. Castorri was once again in the limelight when Andy Murray teamed up with her in 2012. Within the next two years, Murray had become an Olympic and a Grand Slam winner.
All these examples prop up the theory that tournament-specific mental conditioning stints can bear fruit too. Not always though. When Brazil slumped to their worst ever World Cup loss—a 7-1 sobering defeat to Germany—they were being accompanied by Regina Brandao, one of the top psychologists at that time. Stints with noted sports psychologist Dr Rudi Webster when India was coached by Greg Chappell ultimately couldn’t help them avoid a group-stage exit in the 2007 World Cup.
But Dr Swaroop Savanur, a mental conditioning and peak performance coach who has worked with the Punjab Kings, the Ranji Trophy-winning Vidarbha team and the NCA in Bengaluru, feels it’s the holistic approach that matters most during such tournaments.
“We are all trying to achieve a final aim, whether you are a mental coach or a trainer or the coach of the team. We want the player to be optimally, tactically, physically and mentally there so that he can perform to his best,” says Dr Savanur. “The key is to identify where it is lacking. It’s not therefore one person who will drive that success, it’s also about the team. It’s why team bonding plays such an integral role.”
There are different ways of motivating a team. Horn, who studied with Upton and did a two-day session with the India team just before the 2011 World Cup, is known to inspire with stories of grit and character, often painting the players in a different colour that help them set off on a path of self-discovery.
When Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) got Horn to speak to the players during the 2014 IPL—which they won—he inspired them to fight for each other. “I think IPL is about a bunch of mercenaries put together, but mercenaries who care about friends,” he told HT during an interview then. “You want them to take a bullet for each other. I think all the teams don’t have that. You don’t want a family but you want a bond for the duration of the IPL.”
That is where team exercises come more into focus. “For competitive work (like in the IPL), mental conditioning has to be more pointed. It’s about matching the needs of the team with the requirements and mindset of the player,” Savanur explains further. “You have to have a dual perspective. It’s about helping the players understand their needs from a mental perspective. At the same time ensuring the door is always open and any player can walk in without any prejudices. At a senior level, it’s more of a collaborative approach. At the junior level, it’s more instructive.”
Hiring mental wellness coaches was an individual pursuit for the better part of history. Only in the last two decades or so has it become more institutionalised. In the ATP circuit, for example, players can consult therapists 24x7. Change is palpable at cricket’s grassroots level too, says Dr Savanur. “My initial talks were about awareness. Now everyone knows about mental wellness. Today it’s more about how we are integrating mental training into a player’s routine. There is still resistance. But the question is not whether ‘I need it or not’. The question is ‘how do I apply it in my game’. From that perspective, there has been a paradigm shift.”