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All in the mind

By Will 2 years ago, mid-February Add your comment below

Lou Vincent, the New Zealand batsman, has spoken of the depression which has blighted him in the past couple of years. What is it about cricket? It is a sport which has attracted an alarming number of suicides (as written about by David Frith in Silence of the Heart), but does cricket lure depressives into playing, or turn them depressed?

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6 Responses to “All in the mind”

  • The Atheist wrote:
    February 10th, 2008 at 5.34 pm

    It must have something to do with all that hanging around. If you have weak nerves, or, worse still, a mental condition, it is bound to expose them.

    You have so much time to introspect, either in the field or whilst batting, that, unlike other fast-paced games, mental strength over a long period of time becomes a necessity. And constantly challenging these reserves can’t be without some impact on a person’s well-being.

  • Alan R wrote:
    February 10th, 2008 at 6.22 pm

    I’m curious as to whether this phenomenon is equivalent across all levels of the sport or if it’s mainly at the international level. There are very few sports which, even at the international level, require players to spend such long blocks of time away from home in culturally different surroundings. But that’s only an issue at the international level.

    Otherwise, I suppose it’s a sport which requires a certain masochism, at least, to stand in the sun for days trying to stay mentally alert the whole time and to stand in the way of a fast-moving projectile. Not to mention the masochism (or, alternatively, alcoholism) required to be emotionally invested in the fortunes of team England… ;-)

  • Sean (a different one) wrote:
    February 10th, 2008 at 6.24 pm

    I once had a discussion with a moronball loving former MD about why there were so many cricketing suicides. He joked that cricket was simply so boring that it would drive one to depression and suicide.

    I countered that depression is much more prevalent in those with a certain amount of intelligence and that, as cricket is a more cerebral game, it naturally follows that the incidence of depression is higher in cricket than football; put simply footballers are too f**king thick to get depressed.

    I don’t work for him any more.

  • Sean (a different one) wrote:
    February 10th, 2008 at 6.34 pm

    Alan – it goes right across the game. Danny Kelleher of Kent is one who I can think of who never played at international level but committed suicide.

    David Bairstow did play international cricket but not for long.

  • Justcoz wrote:
    February 11th, 2008 at 6.08 pm

    Cricket is not a sport as much as it is an obsession. At its best it challenges the intellect as much as the physical body:
    But at its worst it second guesses everything about you – from personality to physical weakness.

    Even with club cricket we have all seen friends drop into depression after a couple of bad games. Good natured banter becomes mortal insult; wives and kids get ignored; the player becomes isolated. Then a modicum of success returns sanity.

    At a professional level For every dream of a test appearance, there is the reality that failure ends a career. I would not wish that knife edge position on anybody.

    Cricket is no longer a game. It is a sport where every fan is an expert and every nut with a keyboard has voluble voice. I pity the position of all professionals.

  • Rusty wrote:
    February 12th, 2008 at 9.34 am

    Everyone gets depression, not just cricketers. The phenomenon is nothing new, just that people are expressing it. Women have suffered from it for years, especially the post-natal stuff where y ou want to throw the baby out the window, but that wasn’t considered important til men started admitting they sometimes felt like that too :-)

    So now its become trendy to admit it, especially when you’re a rich spoilt footie player ( yes, they get it too apparently, so I’m not sure about the cerebral bit) who has just been found out with doing drugs, because it can get you a more sympathetic hearing. So its the modern “affliction”. So why shouldn’t cricketers get it too?

    (I’m not talking about the really serious levels of pathological depression here, when you become incapable of functioning on all levels – for years and years. Not the sort when you can go out, after a month of being low, and score a few fifties, and “a modicum of success returns sanity”

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