Player who panics least has best chance of succeeding: Paddy Upton

In a nail-biter on Thursday at Wankhede, with 21 runs needed in last two overs, Kolkata Knight Riders' Piyush Chawla swung his bat and missed seven times and four of them successively as Mumbai Indians' Kieron Pollard kept bowling intelligently just wide enough for the batsman to struggle. Hosts won the match by five runs.

Now, Chawla is not a rookie with the bat. He can hit it as far as anybody else in the business. Then what could be the reasons for Chawla, or any batsman, failing to put bat to ball in such a circumstance? Former Indian cricket team's mental conditioning coach and currently head coach of Rajasthan Royals, Paddy Upton said it's about holding nerves and not panicking.

Upton said: "In a situation like the last over we saw on Thursday, both the teams were panicking. The individual that panics the least has the best chance of succeeding. It is not a 50:50 match-up where you have an experienced bowler bowling at the death. Piyush Chawla is not an experienced finisher. The balance of experience certainly was with the bowling team."

Chawla has less experience when compared with Pollard. While Chawla, with 157 Twenty20 career appearances, is 47th in the list of players with most matches, Pollard is No.1 with 279.

Upton went on. "I wonder how much time Chawla would have spent practicing hitting a slow off-spinning ball bowled wide of the wicket out of the ground. There was really a mismatch. You had both the teams panicking with just one more experienced than the other. It happens.

"It happened to Royals once or twice this season where we went down the wire. It is just one man's skill against the other man's skill. That is the beauty of this T20 cricket. You just never know what is coming up. Sitting in the dug out and watching our players, we still don't know what is going to happen."

Perhaps Chawla was thinking of the fear of failure, or fearing the repercussions of failure, as Upton put it. The South African said that players panicking in match situations figured in his team talks.

"We talk about the fact that as the game unfolds, and not just at the death, there are going to be times where we are going to be under pressure. What we need to do under pressure. That boils down to what your role is, communicating what the best thing is, coming up with your best thinking and then committing to the execution of that.

"It boils down to the single biggest obstacle to success – the fear of the repercussions of the failure. It might be a reprimand from the coach, might be from the captain being really disappointed and throwing his hands up in the air, displaying disappointment, it might what you guys write in the media next day. When a player fears the repercussions of failure, that actually tightens him up. If he is a bowler, he just puts (sprays) the ball. If he is a batsman, he might be tentative or might grip the bat too tight or might be pre-meditative. What we try and do is remove the fear of reprimand."

Upton said that Royals think-tank were easy going with no reprimands for failures. "At Royals, no one will be caught, no one will be pointed out if he made a mistake because we focus on players making smart decisions, communicating that decision just to double check that thinking.

"Whatever the thinking is, the players in the middle come up. Regardless of what happens, even if he is not thinking, we fully support the decision. It boils down to execution. Sometimes you execute and sometimes you don't. When you execute, there are more chances of succeeding. We try to remove the fear of failure. What it does is remove the amount of panic in high pressure situation."

Perhaps, Chawla, in a similar situation may be better with experience and not panic.