South African born Patrick Anthony Howard ‘Paddy’ Upton is a Cricket Coach specialising as Head Coach in Professional T20 cricket, Mental Coach to professional athletes, Sports Scientist Executive Coach and Professor of Practice at Deakin University. After attaining his Master’s degree in Sport Science at University of Cape Town.
He worked as the Strength and Conditioning coach for the South Africa cricket team (1994–1998) and the Western Province rugby team (1999)
Changing careers following a second master’s degree in Business Coaching from Middlesex University (2003), and along with Gary Kirsten as head coach, Upton was appointed Mental Conditioning and Strategic Leadership Coach of the Indian National cricket team in 2008. Under Kirsten and Upton, the team attained the ICC top test team ranking for their first time (2009), and went on to win the ICC World Cup in 2011. Following this success, Upton was appointed Performance Director of the South Africa Cricket Team (Proteas) from 2011 to 2014, during which time they became the first team to simultaneously hold the Official ICC World number 1 ranking in all three formats of the international game.
Between 2012 and 2018 Upton has been head coach in 12 professional T20 cricket seasons, for five different teams across three tournaments, including the Indian Premier League, Australian Big Bash League and the Pakistan Super League. His accomplishments as head coach include leading the Rajasthan Royals team from four years near the bottom of the IPL log to IPL Semi-finalists and Champions League finalists in his first season (2013), including a record 13 straight home wins. He joined the Sydney Thunder team after they had lost 21 out of 22 matches in the first three seasons of the Big Bash League, leading them to Big Bash League Champions two seasons later, in BBL05.
Upton has degrees from four different Universities, including two Master’s degrees. In 2015 he was awarded the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Achiever Award, awarded to Alumni who made significant contributions to their specialist fields and contributed to the development and well-being of society at local, provincial, national or international levels. In 2017 he was appointed Professor of Practice at Deakin University.
