It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir after India’s series loss to South Africa. There have been criticisms galore, but he did front up to the media at the end of the series.
One of the key things he had said then was the kind of attitude he expects from the dressing room. “It comes from care. How much do you care about the dressing room and the team? Accountability and the game situation can never be taught. You can talk about skills, you can work on skills, you can keep talking about the mental aspect of the game, but ultimately when you go in, if you keep putting the team ahead of your own self, not thinking, ‘this is how I play, and this is how I will get the results, I don’t have plan B,’ so sometimes you will get these kind of collapses as well.”
It’s a trait that he himself had displayed during his playing career, at times detrimental to his own self. An interesting nugget was presented in a book by Paddy Upton, who was India’s mental conditioning coach during Gambhir’s playing days. Upton pointed out how Gambhir managed to rise as world no1 batsman despite his confidence issues.
In his 2019 book, ‘The Barefoot Coach’, Upton discussed the myth of mental toughness of elite sportspersons and used Gambhir’s case as an example to make his case. In his telling, not everyone needs to have the stereotypical confidence, and Gambhir had shown how he could rise to the challenge of scoring runs for the team.
“… But at the same time, he was undoubtedly one of the best and most determined and successful Test batsmen in the world. Something he would prove yet again in 2011 World Cup final,” Upton added. “I did some of my best and least effective mental conditioning work with Gautam Gambhir, the International Test Cricketer of the Year in 2009. I worked with him up until that time but I had little to do with him being named world’s best cricketer,” Upton writes in his book. “When he scored 150, he would be disappointed not scoring 200.”
Gambhir had responded to Upton’s statements back then. “There is no sinful intention in Upton’s views as he is a nice man, and in any case, my insecurities are well documented.
“I wanted myself and the Indian team to be the best in the world. That’s why I was not satisfied even after scoring 100 as it has been mentioned in Paddy’s book. I see nothing wrong there. As a driven individual, I have tried to raise the bar for myself all alone,” Gambhir would say.”
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