Former India captain MS Dhoni thinks players in the country still hesitate to talk about the fact that they have some weakness when it comes to mental illness and that's the reason why a mental conditioning coach is needed in the team.
"In India, I feel there is still a big issue of accepting that there is some weakness when it comes to the mental aspects, but we generally term it as mental illness," Dhoni said while he was sharing his experiences with top coaches from various sports, including cricket, volleyball, tennis and golf in a session conducted by MFORE.
He further added, "Nobody really says that, when I go to bat, the first 5 to 10 deliveries my heart rate is elevated, I feel the pressure, I feel a bit scared because that's how everybody feels - how to cope with that? This is a small problem but a lot of times we hesitate to say it to a coach and that's why the relationship between a player and coach is very important be it any sport.”
While sharing the importance of mental conditioning coach, he said that the coach should be there constantly with the player so that he can understand what exactly affecting the player’s game.
On the other hand, while speaking on how players can overcome those tough situations, current India captain Virat Kohli said that he thinks mental health and mental clarity is the most important factor in life, not only in sports.
However, MFORE is a non-proft initiative which was launched by former Indian batsman S Badrinath alongside Saravana Kumar with the aim of offering mind conditioning programs to achieve great performance in sports. Even Kohli praised a lot of this initiative as he thinks this will help those cricketers a lot understand themselves better and they can perform better despite the conditions being difficult for them.