Former India mental strength and conditioning coach, Paddy Upton, was worried that there might be more cases like Suresh Raina's waiting to be revealed ahead of and during the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in UAE, starting September 19.
Upton thinks teams should put greater focus on ensuring their players, support staff are doing mentally well within bio-secure bubbles amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
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All touring individuals have had to be vigilant, go through regular testing, quarantine before they could train and play. There is also the huge pressure of not letting their team and the league down every step along the way.
In Raina's case, it was announced the veteran Chennai Super Kings (CSK) batsman is going back due to "personal reasons". While the decision has been taken amid the pandemic and there is a family tragedy that occurred back home, it isn't yet officially clear why Raina opted out after travelling to UAE.
“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 in an interview to ESPNcricinfo. “There are coaches who are gonna be struggling, there are support staff who are gonna be struggling in that three-month bio-bubble."
"Arriving there already depleted, having navigated, being locked indoors, we are gonna find players who haven’t been exercising, we will see some strangely overweight players, we will see players out of nick. I know some players have been lucky to be able to get into the nets, so they are gonna go ahead."
Upton, who has previously advocated teams to consider mental health an important area to look after, said IPL franchises must support their players in these times.
“We need to be predicting these strange things and not have a knee-jerk reaction. 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," he said.
“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."
Further batting in support of Raina, Upton said for a player of his name and fame, losing out on IPL money isn't something that should be talked about because, clearly, the reason for missing the league this year is more significant.
“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,” he added.
