Paddy Upton reveals the fine skipper MS Dhoni imposed on latecomers

When it comes to man-management, MS Dhoni is second to none. When Dhoni was given the responsibility to lead the Indian team, it was the first time he was leading any team in his career. Leading any international team is a herculean task and when the individual does not have any prior knowledge of it, it makes things much tougher. Moreover, the presence of the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and other stalwarts was only going to intimidate Dhoni.

However, Dhoni turned out to be one of the finest captains in the history of the game. He is widely lauded as one of the greatest cricketing brains to have graced the game. Till day, he is the only captain to have won every ICC trophy. Paddy Upton, former mental conditioning coach of Team India, has now opened up about Dhoni’s personality, his strength and how he managed the team. Currently serving as the head coach of Rajasthan Royals, Upton recently released a book named ‘Barefoot’ in which he made some startling revelations most notably about former India opener Gautam Gambhir.

Talking about Dhoni, Upton said Dhoni’s real strength is ‘his calmness and composure’. Upton said that Dhoni’s ice-cool personality also allowed the other players to stay calm and composed during pressure situations.

“His (Dhoni’s) real strength is his calmness and composure, regardless of the situation of the game. Being such a strong leader, using his level-headedness in tough situations, he gives the other players permission to remain calm and composed. That I think is the real strength that he has,” said Upton during a media event for his book The Barefoot Coach in Kolkata.

MS Dhoni’s punishment

Upton also revealed about the legendary skipper’s unique step in order to make his teammates abide by the timings and the schedule. He revealed that former Test captain Anil Kumble introduced a monetary fine for the latecomers before Dhoni added his own twist to it.

“When I joined the team Anil Kumble was the captain of the Test team and MS Dhoni was the captain of the ODI team. We had a very self-governing process. So we said to the team ‘is it important to be on time for the practice and team meetings?’ Everyone said yes it is. So we asked them if anyone is not on time is there anything one should give up? We discussed it amongst ourselves and the players, and eventually, it was left to the captain to decide,” said Upton.

“In the Test team, Anil Kumble said that the consequence would be a ten thousand rupees (Rs 10,000) fine which the person who was late would have to pay. And then we had the same conversation with the one day team and there also MS (Dhoni) said that ‘yes there should be a consequence. So if somebody is late, everybody will pay ten thousand rupees fine!’ Nobody was ever late from the one day team again,” added the South African.

Dhoni, meanwhile, is currently gearing up for the World Cup after a pretty good outing in the IPL where he led Chennai Super Kings to the final.

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