Paddy Upton, the former Mental Conditioning and Strategic Leadership Coach of Team India feels that in the coming days, there might be more cases like Suresh Raina’s withdrawal from IPL if the franchises didn’t give appropriate support to players.
Last week, Chennai Super Kings’ Suresh Raina decided to miss the IPL 2020 citing personal reasons. But later on, it was understood that he was worrying to stay in CSK’s bio-secure bubble after several positive cases emerged in the camp.
According to Upton, Raina’s move can influence other insecure players to pull out of the league. He believes that at this point, the coach’s rule is crucial to keep the environment healthy.
“There are a number of other players who are very much in the same boat as Suresh Raina and I just hope that the teams are aware of that and are catering for that,” Upton said. “There are coaches who are gonna be struggling, there are support staff who are gonna be struggling in that three-month bio-bubble.
Paddy Upton, who has coached multiple teams across the IPL, opined that currently, the IPL team needs to act smartly and give extended support to their members. He believes that the team, who fail to create a sound environment in the bio-secure, will struggle to give up to the mark performance in the upcoming IPL.
“When all of a sudden Suresh Raina goes home, we have this knee-jerk reaction and strange comments in the media. Funny things are gonna happen. Smart teams will predict them, put things in place and have that cushion of support system to be able to support players.
“The teams that do that best are gonna go so far ahead of the other teams that really don’t do that well and they [who don’t do that] are just gonna fall over, unfortunately, in this IPL,” Paddy Upton said.
We need to respect Suresh Raina’s decision: Paddy Upton
Upton said that money can be the motivation for players to continue their stint in IPL even amid COVID-19. But such a thing was not a “strong consideration” in Raina’s exit and added that his decision needs to be respected.
“There are very few players who when cross the rope are motivated by money,” Upton said. “Yes, it’s part of the motivation but I don’t think that’s a strong consideration for Suresh. Whatever he is going home for is more significant than the large amount of money he is not going to be making.
“So it’s probably not ideal to be drawing that analogy and saying. ‘look, how much money he is missing’. He knows that he has made a decision and we need to really respect that,” Paddy Upton concluded.
Suresh Raina’s exit is a massive setback for CSK. His absence at the middle-order will surely be going to cost the MS Dhoni-led team in the IPL 2020 scheduled to begin from 19th September.