Paddy Upton, the former mental conditioning coach for Team India, recently revealed that MS Dhoni had come up with an ingenious idea to make sure players don’t come late for practice sessions. During a media event for the launch of his book ‘The Barefoot Coach,’ Upton recounted how MSD and Anil Kumble (captain of the Test side) came up with the idea when he took over as captain of the one-day side of Team India.
Upton narrated that when he had joined the team, Kumble was in charge of the Test team and Dhoni was leading the ODI side. “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," said Upton, adding that he then discussed with the players about should be done if someone doesn’t arrive on time. “We discussed it amongst ourselves and the players, and eventually it was left to the captain to decide," he added.
MS Dhoni is calm, but he's also cunning
Kumble came up with the idea that each latecomer should be fined with Rs 10,000. However, Dhoni had a shrewder idea. He called for a bigger punishment and suggested that if a player was late, then the rest of the squad will have to pay Rs 10,000 each.
"In the Test team, Anil Kumble said that the consequence would be a ten thousand rupees 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 10,000 rupees fine!' Nobody was ever late from the one day team again," Upton said.
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