Posted 1 years ago

Cricket General

Robin Uthappa’s road to rediscovery

Robin Uthappa’s road to rediscovery
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Robin Uthappa recently announced his retirement from all forms of international and Indian cricket. While his successes and failures on the field are well known, perhaps less known are the personal struggles that have defined his journey every step of the way.

Uthappa’s talents were evident early after he scored a triple century at the final of an Under-16 selection event, at the tender age of 14. However, the enhanced growth due to epilepsy medication was one of the reasons for him not being selected on account of complaints from parents who felt he was older than the U-16 age division.

He was later convinced to not give up by Makarand Waingankar of the Karnataka Cricket Academy. In this regard, his career started off in similar fashion to his father’s hockey career which was cut short due to bureaucratic complications.

 

However, Uthappa’s biggest challenge stemmed from his personal life and his parents’ troubled marriage. As a young cricketer, he felt the added responsibility to perform well to bind his family together, and even experienced suicidal tendencies as a result. The conflict also required him to change his phone number often, destabilizing his life.

Through his challenges Uthappa has served as an example of how cricketers and elite athletes face mental health challenges as others do, which may also be made worse by the demands of the sport to continually perform well. With the help of a counsellor and partner, he has been able to overcome his struggles and encourages others to do the same and has even advocated cricket teams to have psychologists and for players to hire mental-skills coaches.

 

Uthappa’s records have not been fair to his abilities. With an average run rate of 25 runs per international game and 41 runs in first class cricket, his performances don’t reveal his true potential.

While hiring a new coach Praveen Amre paid off, with his runs averaging above 50 in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons, he failed to make a mark in Test cricket with Sehwag, Tendulkar, Dravid and Gambhir occupying key slots, followed by MS Dhoni in the middle order.

Ultimately, Uthappa has realized that he is not defined by any single venture in his life, cricket or otherwise, which is summed up in a tattoo on his arm that reads “I Am”.

 

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