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Depression in cricket

Cricket Tragic

By Cricket Tragic
in Cricket Talk

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phaedrus Newbie

phaedrus

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Or they speak more openly about it. :dontknow:
true, but(at the risk of generalising) people from the subcontinent have a tighter support group, family and such. that must play a big role
Vijay.Sharma Newbie

Vijay.Sharma

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I agree with Lurker that depression is more common than it seems. Everyone goes thru a phase in life when they are depressed. It affects their decisions, their personality, their relationships, their work. But while for many of us it is a passing phase from which we bounce back as better individuals some people get into clinical depression where their minds just get addicted to being depressed. Even slight change in circumstances/situations (like having to travel without family) affects them bad and they just go into a cocoon. From personal experience I can tell you I had one bad phase of depression but at least I am not clinically depressed. One of my very close friends is clinically depressed and it has developed into what they call bipolar disorder. It's a fight for them everyday of their lives. Clinical Depression I think is similar to addiction in many ways...it never goes away and it is a daily fight. My ex also had big time depression so I have experience of this from both sides - of having gone thru it myself and having been in very close relationships with people who have/had even worse forms of depression than what I had. While some people trash it off as if the sufferer is sissy, it actually is anything but that. It's not home-sickness. Depression is very different from home-sickness and unfortunately we have no medicines to cure it than spiritual methods. Anti-depressants are even more dangerous - once u are on them, the moment u stop it you hit even further rock bottoms. Anti-depression medication actually makes depression take stronger roots and diverts the addiction from depression state of mind to a state of mind where you want to keep taking those anti-depressant drugs. Hence I sympathize with these fellas. I think even the Indian team must have gone thru depressions. I am sure they have but they don't talk about it and even as a society we ourselves have not presented the disease to the general public in a manner where they can understand it correctly. Impression mostly is depression = feeling bad. I am sure Sachin must have gone thru a depression phase between 2005-07, Rahul between 07-10, Yuvraj possibly many phases, Viru, Bhajji during Chappal era.

Vijay.Sharma Newbie

Vijay.Sharma

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true' date=' but(at the risk of generalising) people from the subcontinent have a tighter support group, family and such. that must play a big role[/quote']Yes, that is also true but urban India is also pretty much going that way. I think increasingly we are living very lonely lives in bustling cities which also become sources for depression.
Vijay.Sharma Newbie

Vijay.Sharma

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Also the Indian kids of today - cricketers I mean - will go thru it too because of external pressure as well in the IPL days. One day you are a hero and the other you are a zero. I guess guys like Sreesanth, Bhajji, Zak, from the slightly older generation have definitely gone thru it. I also feel that one of our best fast bowlers Srinath cut short his career coz one of the factors could be depression. He was not done by any means when he quit...he was still bowling 140 (I saw some of the WC 2003 videos) and was just superb with his game...he cracked the code of fast bowling by that time.

Stuge Proficient

Stuge

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All Indian Cricket fans are getting depressed. The players look as though they dont give a damn.
Players do and they are more depressed than you ,but they tend to hide their emotions .
Cricket Tragic Newbie

Cricket Tragic

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Harmison faces up to depression

Steve Harmison has become the latest England cricketer to face up to the possibility that he was afflicted by clinical depression during his international career. In the BBC documentary Freddie Flintoff: Hidden Side Of Sport, Harmison admitted a doctor raised the possibility that the bouts of homesickness and anxiety attacks that characterised his career might be extreme enough to be classified as severe depression. Harmison's problems were most severe during England's 2004-5 tour of South Africa when, by his own estimation "I realised that I had a problem and was going to have to sort it out." His admission follows Marcus Trescothick's enforced early retirement from international cricket because of mental health issues and Michael Yardy's premature departure from the 2011 World Cup after a lengthy fight with depression. Andrew Flintoff also speculated depression might have been behind his prolonged drinking bouts as captain of a whitewashed England side during the 2006/7 tour of Australia. Harmison took only nine wickets at an average of 72 runs during the South Africa tour before recovering the following summer to play a central role alongside Flintoff in England's Ashes success. "I was the No. 1 bowler in the world at the time and maybe there was a perception that everybody was looking at me thinking we've got to bowl South Africa out," said Harmison. "You have got to take five wickets each time, you have got to do this, you have got to do that, you have got to carry the attack, and here I was struggling inside. "It never really transformed into something on the field. That was my get-out really - walking over that white line." Harmison's problems began even before the Test series began, frustrating his coach at the time, Duncan Fletcher, whose relationship with Harmison and Flintoff deteriorated as the years progressed. "We went into Jo'burg and it was the first time really where I went into a trip where I was having one of these dog days, or episodes, as the doctor said to me afterwards. That was the first time I had gone onto a trip feeling like that. "I had a bad first week. I couldn't train. I was struggling to breathe, I was hyperventilating and that's when it dawned on me that I had a problem and I was going to have to sort it out. "I was panicky, the anxiety was hitting me and I had a lump in my throat, I was having bad heads, I was shaking, I didn't want to let go off the ball. There was one night when I went back into my room and looked into the mirror and thought 'what's the problem?' That is when it really dawned on me, 'You have a problem, you're not weak, you are going to have to sort it out. "That was when depression was first mentioned. I still can't get to the answer of what made me feel that way." Flintoff told that his lowest moment came in Australia when he broke down and cried in front of his father on Chrisitmas Eve in Melbourne and pronounced himself a failure. England, although aware of his problems, chose not to replace him as captain with Andrew Strauss for the one-day series because Fletcher feared, quite wrongly, a backlash from the media. "I was at an all-time low personally and professionally even though I was captain of England," Flintoff said. "But I didn't want to get out of bed and I didn't want to face people." http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/549091.html

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