Gambhir was insecure, Dhoni has emotional control: Paddy Upton reveals in his new book

Upton, in his book, pointed at how former India opener Gautam Gambhir was riddled with insecurities, doubts and vulnerabilities.

Team India's former mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton released his book ‘The Barefoot Coach’ in which he has written in length about mental conditioning of sportsmen. Discussing the myth of mental toughness of elite sportsperson and how they react to situations, Upton made some major revelations about cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir. Upton, in his book, pointed at how former India opener Gautam Gambhir was riddled with insecurities, doubts and vulnerabilities. He went on to add that the former Kolkata Knight Riders skipper was one of the most negative people he has worked with. “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. Upton termed Gautam as someone who was wired towards the lower end of the optimism/pessimism scale if 100 stands for ‘uber-optimistic’ and 0 stood for pessimistic. “Let's say his range was 20 to 40 with 30 being normal. When he scored 150, he would be disappointed in not scoring 200.” Upton wrote that no matter what he and then coach Gary Kirsten did Gambhir was ‘negative and pessimistic.’ “Using the popular notion of mental toughness, he was one of the weakest and mentally most insecure' people I have worked with. 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,” he wrote further. Gambhir came forward to react and said, “I wanted myself and 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 alone.” In the same chapter, Upton wrote about former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's ‘incredible emotional control’. “I would go as far as to say, with the greatest respect for MS the man and the Cricketer, that it is not emotional control but the lack of access to emotions. MS is not wired as an emotional type. It's almost as if he doesn't have them; a performance-enhancing gift from birth,” Upton wrote.