The man who helped rejuvenate the career of a grief-stricken Jacques Kallis is to join him at the Sydney Thunder in an effort to turn around the fortunes of the struggling Big Bash League franchise.
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Paddy Upton, who as South Africa's performance director played a key role in his home nation's rise to the top of the Test rankings before they were recently eclipsed by Australia, has signed a two-year deal as head coach of the Twenty20 tournament's western Sydney team.
Upton, 45, does not have a traditional coaching background. He was fitness trainer of the Proteas in the 1990s before turning his attention to what he saw was the largely neglected psychological side of the game. He would later be appointed India's mental-conditioning coach under countryman Gary Kirsten before winning the head coaching job at IPL team Rajasthan Royals.
The Thunder believe his innovative approach is tailor-made for the BBL.
"Particularly in these short formats, where you've got to take players from a whole lot of different teams, form a team out of them quickly and try to get a handle on your strategy quick than the other teams ... it's all about cohesion and getting players to understand each others' games," Upton said.
Kallis, the Thunder's star signing for the next two seasons, has a long association with Upton and his mentoring of the legendary all-rounder helped refocus him after the death of his father in 2003.
"The first sports client I had, and he paid me out of his own pocket, was a guy called Jacques Kallis," Upton said. "He was the first person I approached and did this kind of work with. It's interesting, that was the beginning of the journey and now it's near the end of Jacques' journey.
"His father had died, and at a similar time he had broken up with his long-time girlfriend, so naturally his personal support base had been taken out from underneath him. And he'd been about 14 months without a century at that point. And that's really when we started working together."
Whatever Upton said did the trick. Kallis then went on to score five straight international hundreds, including four in consecutive Test matches against the West Indies.
He is no less ambitious about his plans for the Thunder.
"What I'm wanting is that when the players finish their career, I want them to look back and say that this period of time, playing at the Sydney Thunder, was the best time of their career," he said. "Success is important and what is success? It's winning the tournament, it's going to the Champions League and it's having a bloody good crack at the final."
