What images come to mind when you think of cricket? Perhaps it’s a picturesque scene of an English village green, with people sitting on deckchairs and checkered blankets enjoying a traditional cricket tea while watching players in pristine whites occasionally shouting “howzat?!” The stereotype of cricket as a genteel, quintessentially English sport can be far removed from reality. Besides its potentially demanding and exclusive work culture, cricket requires immense endurance, resilience, and skill. The sport is so challenging that test cricket is often called “the ultimate test.” Research from Loughborough University revealed that a career in professional cricket has “highs and lows that both stimulate a player’s mental health and lead to mental health issues and impaired performance.”
Freddie Flintoff’s latest docuseries, Field of Dreams On Tour, follows up on his original 2022 series where he formed a cricket team from an unlikely group of teenage boys in his hometown of Preston, UK. This series highlights the complexity of cricket’s relationship with players’ mental health. Flintoff, a former international cricketer and coach for the England cricket squad, is familiar with mental health struggles and has publicly shared his experiences with depression and bulimia during and after his cricket career. The second season of Field of Dreams tracks Flintoff’s journey as he takes his team on a cricket tour in India while capturing their highs and lows and illustrating how sports, especially cricket, can both help and harm mental health.
Flintoff and his team are not alone in facing mental health challenges. Cricket’s history is filled with cases of mental health crises and even suicide. Cricket writer David Frith spent over thirty years researching suicides among cricket players and published two books on the topic. His 2001 book concluded that cricket has a “startling suicide rate,” notably higher among international players for England and several other countries compared to the national average for all sports. Frith believed “the loss” of cricket deeply affected players, and he might be onto something. A UK study found that “all of the participants reflected negatively on the termination of their career,” with feelings of loss and resentment commonly marking the post-retirement period. Many elite athletes have a narrow but strong sense of identity tied to their sport. When they retire, they may feel as though they’ve lost a part of themselves along with their job. The transition from an active player to retirement can resemble a grieving process. However, a study suggests that supportive families can buffer depression and suicide risks by enhancing players’ sense of identity outside the sport. Elite athletes struggling with withdrawal from sport might turn to alcohol, drugs, and gambling to cope with their sense of loss. A 2023 study noted that, while athletes are not necessarily at greater suicide risk than the general population, various factors like misuse of performance-enhancing substances, sports-related stressors, injuries, drug abuse, affective disorders, and mental and physical illness in sport, elevate their suicide risk during active careers and retirement.
However, the stigma surrounding mental health is gradually breaking down as more players speak about their experiences with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Following the death of retired cricketer Graham Thorpe in August 2024, former Indian cricketer Robin Uthappa opened up about his mental health issues. He said, “I recently heard about Graham Thorpe and multiple cricketers who have ended their lives because of depression. Even in the past, we have heard of athletes and cricketers who have ended their lives because of clinical depression. I personally have been there as well. I know for a fact that it’s not a pretty journey. It’s debilitating, it’s exhausting and it’s heavy. It feels burdensome.”
Uthappa is not alone. Retired cricketer Phil Tufnell has also spoken about his mental health struggles, saying that the national side “didn’t know how to help players battling mental health issues during his career.” Indian international cricketer Virat Kohli has also been open about his mental health during an England tour in 2014 when he suffered from the yips. Kohli said, “And still to get out of bed and just get dressed for the game and to go out there and go through that, knowing that you will fail, was something that ate me up. It just demolished me completely.”
However, not all former players criticize the sport’s response to mental health. In 2016, former professional cricketer Graeme Fowler spoke about his experience with clinical depression, arguing that cricket is ahead of other sports in tackling mental health issues. Support, however, seems to be reactive – provided only when a problem arises rather than implementing preventative measures from the onset of a player’s career. The increasing willingness of players to discuss their experiences may be making a difference. In 2022, England Test captain Ben Stokes returned from a mental health break. “It was like I had a glass bottle I kept on throwing my emotions into. Eventually, it got too full and just exploded,” Stokes told BBC Breakfast.
There are growing mental health initiatives in cricket. The charity Opening Up Cricket was founded in memory of wicketkeeper Alex Miller, who took his own life in 2012. While Flintoff and his colleagues work hard to break down stigma, cricket authorities must create supportive environments that nurture players’ mental health during and after their careers.