IPL 2020: Hope Teams Are Aware That Many Are in the Same Boat as Suresh Raina - Paddy Upton

Mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton believes there will be many cases similar to that of Suresh Raina in the build-up to the Indian Premier League and that measures must be taken to ensure players' mental well-being is taken care of.

The IPL 2020 will be held in UAE, with team members and others involved having to live in their own respective bio-secure bubbles for a period of nearly 3 months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Raina, for his part, had left the tournament not only due to fears of contracting the coronavirus due to an outbreak in the Chennai Super Kings camp but also due to the death of his uncle, something he spoke about on Tuesday.

"There are a number of other players who are very much in the same boat as Suresh Raina and I just hope that the teams are aware of that and are catering for that," Upton said on ESPNcricinfo Newsroom.

"There are coaches who are gonna be struggling, there are support staff who are gonna be struggling in that three-month bio-bubble.

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"Arriving there already depleted, having navigated, being locked indoors, we are gonna find players who haven't been exercising, we will see some strangely overweight players, we will see players out of nick."

Upton added that a lot will need to be done to ensure there are no knee-jerk reactions from players or anyone else, citing Sures Raina's leaving the tournament as an example.

"I know some players have been lucky to be able to get into the nets, so they are gonna go ahead. We need to be predicting these strange things and not have a knee-jerk reaction.

"When all of a sudden Suresh Raina goes home, we have this knee-jerk reaction and strange comments in the media. Funny things are gonna happen. Smart teams will predict them, put things in place and have that cushion of support system to be able to support players.

"The teams that do that best are gonna go so far ahead of the other teams that really don't do that well and they [who don't do that] are just gonna fall over, unfortunately, in this IPL."

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He further added that money might not have been a "strong consideration" in Raina's exit, indirectly refuting comments from Chennai Super Kings owner N Srinivasan and saying that the player's decision must be respected.

"There are very few players who when cross the rope are motivated by money. Yes, it's part of the motivation but I don't think that's a strong consideration for Suresh.

"Whatever he is going home for is more significant than the large amount of money he is not going to be making. So it's probably not ideal to be drawing that analogy and saying. 'look, how much money he is missing'.

"He knows that he has made a decision and we need to really respect that."

The 13th editon of the IPL begins on September 19.