{"id":181906,"date":"2026-06-17T23:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T04:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=181906"},"modified":"2026-06-17T23:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T04:37:14","slug":"paddy-upton-managing-fame-will-be-vaibhav-sooryavanshis-biggest-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=181906","title":{"rendered":"Paddy Upton: Managing fame will be Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s biggest challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

From topping the IPL run charts and claiming the Orange Cap to earning his maiden India call-up, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has had a whirlwind few weeks.<\/p>\n

At 15, he has gone from being one of India\u2019s brightest prospects to one of the most closely watched young cricketers in the country. But before flying to Ireland and England with India\u2019s senior men\u2019s squad for the white-ball series, Sooryavanshi has faced his first significant setback.<\/p>\n

In the ongoing Tri-Nation tournament in Dambulla, Sri Lanka, the left-hander has shown flashes of promise but has yet to convert his starts into substantial scores for India A. A couple of days earlier, he found himself in the spotlight for reasons beyond his batting after a heated exchange with Sri Lankan players<\/a> during a tense group-stage clash, which eventually ended in a dramatic Super Over.<\/p>\n

For mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton, who has worked with India\u2019s 2011 World Cup-winning cricket team and the country\u2019s Olympic medal-winning hockey team, such moments are simply part of every young athlete\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n

The bigger question, he believes, is not whether Sooryavanshi can handle success on the field, but whether he can navigate the scrutiny, noise and expectations that accompany it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, in terms of his on-field performance, as was repeatedly demonstrated in IPL, he\u2019s got the right mindset to deliver on-field performance and even in the big moments. That\u2019s pretty clear,\u201d Upton told Sportstar<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecondly, it\u2019s important to give a dose of reality that nobody continues on a hot run of form. He\u2019s had a seriously hot run of form in IPL. It\u2019s almost impossible to expect that to continue. So, if I were around, I would work with him to expect a few low scores, some failure, some results not going his way,\u201d Upton said, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely normal and to be expected. And there\u2019s no way anything different to that is going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a case of, when he does have a low run of form, how long does it last? How much does he get attached to it and how soon does he come out of it? And that\u2019s up to him, to a large degree\u2026,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

For Upton, however, the real challenge lies away from the middle. The scrutiny that comes with sudden fame, he believes, will test Sooryavanshi far more than any bowler can.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis single biggest challenge, I believe, is how he manages the external noise away from the playing arena. And I can tell you, some of the mentally strongest, some of the best athletes in the world, who\u2019ve got significant experience, still get derailed by external noise, external expectations, external judgement,\u201d Upton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s from fans, the media, sponsors, team owners, parents, coaches or teammates. And that\u2019s going to be his single biggest challenge, to manage that noise, which is something that will be foreign to him. It\u2019s not something that he\u2019s ever faced before,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen enough quickly rising young superstars in India over the last 5-6 years, who\u2019ve had a great IPL and who\u2019ve been labelled as the next Sachin Tendulkar or the next Virat Kohli or the next MS Dhoni. And the majority of them, we don\u2019t see them anymore. They\u2019ve just sort of returned to the ranks of the rest of the international IPL cricketers. And often, that is them getting caught up in the external noise, getting caught up in the expectations,\u201d the seasoned mental-conditioning expert noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd my big question was, would be, I wonder who is working with him around that? Because that\u2019s one thing players have identified over and over in sport is helping someone deal with sudden fame, or with fame\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Fame, Upton warned, often brings another challenge: the people it attracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens with young superstars like this is that so many people crowd around them and want a piece of the action, and want to be seen to be part of his entourage. So he is going to get surrounded by a lot of people who don\u2019t actually have his best interests at heart. They\u2019ve got their own public visibility and ego and their own self-image at the front and centre,\u201d Upton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m sorry there\u2019s no 15-year-old who\u2019s able to distinguish \u2018who is genuinely here to help me\u2019, and \u2018who is here just to ride on my coattails of fame for a short while\u2019,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cAnd those people often become the deadwood that hold people down\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Upton, who has also worked as head coach of IPL franchises, was equally measured when discussing Sooryavanshi\u2019s recent disciplinary issues, arguing that what matters most is how the teenager responds to the episode in Dambulla.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, everyone can make mistakes. You know, he\u2019s made a mistake by reacting as he did. It\u2019s just hard, you know, I would be guessing what\u2019s going on for him, what stress, pressure, anxiety is going on for him that gets him to react as he did.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to know who is guiding him to recover from this, learn from it, because what\u2019s going to happen going forward, I have no doubt that a lot of opposition, particularly, the more aggressive oppositions, are going to provoke him, because they\u2019ve seen the way he\u2019s responded or reacted. So he will be provoked now,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Having worked with athletes around the world, Upton believes sport is often ill-equipped to help young stars deal with sudden fame.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd too often, kids fall off the wagon because they aren\u2019t able to handle the brightness of the limelight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If there is one conversation Upton would prioritise before Sooryavanshi takes the next step in his career, it would be about preparing him for the inevitability of failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the first things I would do is prepare him for failure. To say there\u2019s a good chance that in your first two or three innings, you don\u2019t score runs. What is that going to feel like? What\u2019s that going to look like? What\u2019s that experience going to be like? And how are you going to manage yourself?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo one of the key things is to prepare him for failure. That\u2019s going to come, whether it comes now or later, it\u2019s going to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe failure is not going to be the problem. It\u2019s how does he manage himself around the failure and how does he manage himself around all the criticism and the noise and the stories that are going to come out when he inevitably has a run of form. So, I would prepare him for the worst and very often that\u2019s, you know, that\u2019s a very good starting point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When 16-year-old Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan for his India debut in 1989, elder brother Ajit was by his side, helping him navigate the biggest moment of his young cricketing life.<\/p>\n

As Sooryavanshi prepares for his maiden series with India\u2019s senior men\u2019s team in Ireland and England, the BCCI has allowed his parents to accompany him on tour. Given his age, the Board felt the presence of his family would help him adapt to the demands of international cricket and life on the road.<\/p>\n

Upton, however, believes the answer is not always straightforward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a delicate balance, to be honest. The reality is, more often than not, Indian parents are overbearing and overly controlling,\u201d Upton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worked with a number of Indian professional athletes across different sports, whose parents want to hold on too much and continue to treat them as a child. The parent has invested so much time, money and effort in getting them to become an international superstar. And the parent feels that this is my time now to shine, because of all the work I\u2019ve put in,\u201d Upton explained.<\/p>\n

Too few parents, according to him, know when to step back and allow the child to become their own person.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very, very delicate balance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He will soon launch a course for parents on how to manage kids around their sports participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it is such a global problem across all countries, from school through to international sport,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there is very little information available to actually coach parents how to support their child and not undermine them. My experience is that Indian parents, particularly Indian fathers, are just way too overbearing. Children often don\u2019t feel safe and secure enough to tell their parents that actually they\u2019re more of a hindrance than a help,\u201d Upton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they just suck it up and go along with it. And then the parents\u2019 energy actually ends up being something that the child has to manage. And they\u2019ve got enough pressure playing international sports to have to also manage a parent\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Published on Jun 18, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From topping the IPL run charts and claiming the Orange Cap to earning his maiden India call-up, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has had a whirlwind few weeks. At 15, he has gone…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/PTI06_17_2026_000171B.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":177610,"url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=177610","url_meta":{"origin":181906,"position":0},"title":"BCCI to send Vaibhav Sooryavanshi\u2019s parents on Ireland, England tour","author":"Ajay Kumar Verma","date":"June 6, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"When a 16-year-old Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan for his India debut in 1989, his elder brother Ajit accompanied him to offer reassurance through the biggest moment of his young life. 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