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India beating Britain with 10 men in Paris one of my proudest moments: Paddy Upton
India's hockey team, under mental coach Paddy Upton, rebounded from a World Cup disappointment to win multiple events
The Indian hockey team had entered the 2023 World Cup with a weight of expectations on their shoulders. Being the hosts and having won a bronze at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics to end a 41-year medal wait, the pressure of delivering their first Cup medal since 1975 was enormous.
But India exited in the crossovers to finish joint ninth, the worst result for a host at the World Cup. Graham Reid resigned as chief coach amid questions about the team’s mental fragility. Before leaving, the Aussie stressed on the need for a mental training expert.
Craig Fulton, who succeeded Reid two months later, concurred and brought in fellow South African and a familiar figure in India, mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton, in July 2023.
Upton had an immediate impact. India won the Asian Champions Trophy which they had not since 2018, and the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games – their first in nine years. Upton, who works with the team on a need basis, returned before the 2024 Paris Games, helping India win a successive Olympic bronze. The 56-year-old has now returned to help the players win the Asia Cup and qualify for the 2026 World Cup.
“The thinking that the leadership, Craig and (skipper) Harmanpreet, had is that I’d work with the team before some big tournaments, find ways to get those extra 1-2% to boost team confidence. From the mental side, help players manage distraction, get better and better at managing their minds, particularly in the big moments, around making mistakes, etc.,” Upton, who helped India win the 2011 ODI World Cup, told HT.
Until Upton arrived, most India players had not interacted with a psychologist, and had inhibitions in opening up.
“In every team there are people who are more introverted. And there are some players who are very quick to trust and open up. My challenge is to try and get the players to feel as comfortable, and as quickly as possible, to know that they can open up to me,” said Upton, who also helped D Gukesh win the world chess championship last year.
“I tell them they don’t have to talk to me. If they’ve got something bugging them, as long as they’ve got somebody they can talk to and help them process that. It did help. When I started, Hardik Singh was very quick to speak to me. The others saw that. He spoke about the conversations we had and the value I’d added. So, when you get a senior player endorsing someone like me, it makes it easier for the youngsters. It’s always important to have a couple of those players who lead the way.”
It is Upton’s first session with the players since the Paris Olympics.
“The way I work is to help somebody find their own answers for themselves. I don’t necessarily prescribe answers. What you’ve got here is an unbelievably professional bunch. They work incredibly hard. Their dedication to their sleeping, eating, training is… If I take my time in Indian cricket, these guys are another five leagues above the Indian cricket team.
“Every guy is like Virat Kohli. Kohli is, at his level of fitness and dedication, unique in world cricket. This is a team of 18 Kohlis when it comes to that level of physicality. Often the game against the top teams is determined in the last quarter and one of the things that this team has committed to is ‘we’re not going to lose in the last quarter because somebody else is fitter than us’.”
India players acknowledge Upton’s contribution. Perhaps the biggest change has been the team not panicking in pressure situations. “Paddy has helped us in having a positive mindset. We discussed not getting overexcited or nervous in pressure situations, to just hang in there and trust ourselves,” Hardik told HT.
Upton has spent years in India with multiple teams across sport and that familiarity has helped in the communication.
“When you get a team that is so diverse compared to Belgium or Holland or Germany, if you don’t harness the differences well, they can very quickly divide a team,” said Upton.
“If we go back to the Olympics, the win against Great Britain with 10 men for 46 minutes, that would’ve been one of the most incredible sporting events I’ve ever been part of, one of the most proud I’ve ever been of how a team of 10 fought a team of 11 to defy all odds and rewrite history. That’s a perfect example of what this team is capable of.”
