The only surprise about hearing that international cricketer Jonathan Trott has decided to pull out of a tour due to a stress-related illness is that it doesn’t happen more often.
The sheer nature of the game ensures that its participants be mentally tough. And by that I mean that they are able to block out any self-doubts and insecurities, be they form-related or existential, and perform on the field.
A number of cricketers have recently spoken out about how they faced mental health issues during their careers.
Marcus Trescothick and Steve Harmison – two elite English cricketers – are amongst this contingent.
Even without the media spotlight, cricket is an abnormally demanding sport, in that it requires hours of your time and your full, undivided attention. It is not a sport for he whose mind tends to drift outside the confines of the cricket field.
During my adolescence and into my early adulthood, I was a reasonable enough cricketer; however, once I reached grade cricket I realised that, mentally, I probably wasn’t well-equipped enough to succeed at the sport at a high-level.
Basically, I kept thinking too much. Questioning why I was spending my weekend around a bunch of blokes – that, with a few notable exceptions, I had nothing in common with other than the fact we each paid a registration fee to the same cricket club – while my friends lived their adult lives the way one arguably should: mentally and physically liberated.
There have been a number of articles lately about how some elite sportmen struggle to blend in with their jocular teammates.
The New Yorker recently penned an article on Miami Dolphins guard Richie Incognito, who was suspended for essentially bullying his Stanford-educated teammate, Jonathan Martin, for being a ‘rara avis’ – loosely translated as “rare bird.” In Australian parlance, this basically means he is the NFL’s version of a “rare bloke.”
While there is no evidence that Trott has suffered the same teasing on the basis of being intellectually different, one can safely say that it is difficult to “be yourself” in a team environment. The pressure is on to “buy in” to a certain culture; individualism is shunned in favour of conformity – one in, all in.
Given these difficulties, Trott is to be commended for leaving the Ashes tour to seek help. The only disappointment is that for fear of exposing a perceived weakness, he wasn’t able to do it sooner.
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