Cricket World Cup experience of a lifetime for psychology trainee

Glasgow Caledonian University Trainee Sport and Exercise Psychologist Sahen Gupta has spoken of his Cricket World Cup experience of a lifetime in the West Indies with Scotland Men’s U19 squad.

The DPsych trainee was invited to join the team when they were given a last-minute ticket to the ICC World Cup earlier this year, having narrowly missed out on direct qualification.

Sahen spent a month in a COVID-19 bubble with the team, attending training camps and travelling to many countries in the West Indies for the World Cup, providing mental health and wellbeing support to players and staff.

He has been working with the team since late 2020 thanks to a partnership between Glasgow Caledonian University’s DPsych programme and Cricket Scotland.

Sahen said: “It was an experience of a lifetime. You can’t really get much better training than that in the field of sport and exercise psychology, being in a COVID bubble with the team and helping them through really challenging times.”

Sahen is currently pursuing his Sport and Exercise Psychology Professional Doctorate at GCU.  As part of his studies Sahen provides sport psychology support to the under-19 Scotland National Male Cricket team, and has worked in elite football, tennis, archery, and golf.

He said: “I have been working with the Cricket Scotland team for a while now and when they got the qualification for the World Cup circuit, I was part of the support staff services team as their sport psychologist.

“My role was to ensure player wellbeing and I spent a month in a COVID bubble with the team. I was there to help them cope with the uncertainty of regular testing and with the general stress of competing in a World Cup, especially at such short notice, and balancing wellbeing with performance.

“They were not supposed to be part of the tournament so we got the last call up in November when New Zealand pulled out, so the team didn’t have an ideal prep season and we had to cancel a couple of training camps because of Omicron.

“The main focus for me was development and performance, helping them prepare to compete at the highest level of cricket. It was a rollercoaster ride and one I will never forget. I just had to make sure I was ahead of the curve and work collaboratively with the team and the staff.”