'We Aren't Ready To Win The World Cup Final': Paddy Upton Reveals Indian Coaching Staff's Comments 10 Months Before 2011 World Cup

Team India’s mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton went flashbacks in the road map of India’s 2011 World Cup campaign.

India lifted the prestigious trophy on home soil 28 years after Kapil Dev and his men attained the feat at Lord’s by defeating West Indies in the 1983 World Cup final.

We had to prepare for the highest pressure situations: Paddy Upton

The MS Dhoni-led side beat Sri Lanka by six wickets at the Wankhede after chasing 275 in 48.2 overs. Dhoni remained not out on 91 and Gautam Gambhir laid the foundation for the chase with 97 in 122 balls.

However, the coaching staff wasn’t confident 10 months before the marquee event about the Men in Blue winning the title. Upton, who was India’s mental conditioning and strategic leadership coach during that time, narrated how they prepared the players for additional pressure of the big-ticket final game.

“It was on the morning of the Asia Cup final, 10 months before the 2011 World Cup final, we were preparing to play Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka. The question that Gary Kirsten asked was, if this is a World Cup final, are we ready as a team to go out and win? Gary and I, along with Eric Simmons, all of us said, ‘No, we aren’t ready to win a World Cup final’,” Upton said in a video posted on cricket.com.tv.

“The thinking was that because of the amount of the home pressure, and when we extrapolated that, it was very clear that playing the final at Wankhede, which is one of the noisiest stadiums, and Sachin Tendulkar’s last World Cup game, there would be higher pressure than what any of those players had played under or would play under in the rest of their lives.

Paddy Upton’s new role with the Indian team

Upton has returned to the Indian national side for his second stint as the mental conditioning coach under Rahul Dravid. It was the Indian head coach who proposed the South Africa-born coach’s name for the role.

Upton will start his work with the Indian team in the upcoming five-match T20I series against the West Indies in the Caribbean. The 53-year-old is likely to be in the role until the 2022 T20 World Cup in November Down Under.

Also Read: Having Paddy Upton As The Mental Conditioning Coach Will Be Helpful For The Team: Rahul Dravid