“PTSD happens to cricketers too!”

Dec 01, 2013 Sports

---

 

 
Colin E. H. Croft
PTSD – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – is a serious health condition that makes itself known in various ways, defined as a condition that may develop after a person is exposed to one or more traumatic events.

While the condition is normally associated with war veterans, those whom may have experienced death, destruction or very serious, often limb-removing injuries, as aggressors or defenders, in conflicts around the world, that great stress can also certainly be associated with sports-persons.
United States of America has a Department of Veteran Affairs, which looks after war veterans of past conflicts.
What is not known generally is that in any month, as many as thirty USA war veterans commit suicide, so traumatically injured they were, never being able to get battles and bad experiences out of mind.
The recent situation that developed around England batsman Jonathan Trott has hit the news, but these situations happen relatively often, and are kept mostly secret, not shared by many, for there is, still, a syndrome of shame, especially in sports, where sports-persons are supposed to be so very tough.
It may be co-incidental that another English batsman, Marcos Trescothick, was one of the first to publicly express that stress was such a burden that he could not continue playing on the international circuit. He suggested that touring presented so many challenges and life-changing situations that he could not endure them anymore.
Many times you have heard me describe playing for West Indies, or other country’s representative teams, representing one’s country, as tantamount to war.
It really is, if the task at hand is taken as seriously as it should be.
Therefore PTSD is real for cricketers too, like anyone else put under these very stressful situations!
Consider a batsman of 1970’s or 1980’s, like, for example, England’s Geoffrey Boycott – 108 Tests, 8114 runs, avg. 47.72, or David Gower – 117 Tests, 8231 runs, avg. 44.25.
Both were great batsmen, by any measurement.  Most of their Tests were played against West Indies and Australia, whose teams, at that time, consisted of actual life-threatening fast bowlers.
Then consider that they played when all that batsmen had for real protection were leg pads, gloves and a box-protector, sometimes an arm-guard too, but not the armor-like protections of today’s batsmen.
Note especially that most batsmen of 1970’s and 1980’s had no helmets for most of their careers either.
But Boycott and Gower, and others too, made their runs against some of the most fearsome bowlers ever – West Indies’ Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Colin Croft and Wayne Daniel; along with Australia’s Jeff Thompson, Dennis Lillee and Len Pascoe, and Pakistan’s Imran Khan.
None of these bowlers gave any quarter nor asked any.
Gower and Boycott were excellent, as many would attest later, “made of sterner stuff”, great examples of batsmen who withstood everything thrown at them, to be successful.
Meantime, both, in later years, had confirmed that “their minds were everywhere at the thoughts of facing these fast bowlers.”
When West Indies returned from Australia after that debacle-type tour in 1975/6, after being destroyed by Australia’s fast bowlers, especially Lillee and Thomson, our stalwart players, to a man, described scenes and situations that could only be akin to war.
Records will indicate that, except Gordon Greenidge, the best that West Indies had then, all legendary batsmen, made at least one century during that tour, yet they described open conflict, as raged by Lillee and Co.
Some of us are quite tough, being able to survive anything thrown at us, but is not always that easy.
I have a close friend who flies Falcon Jets for the USA Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which seeks out drug runners trying to bring their illicit products into USA – a very tough job – since his airplane is regularly shot at when he and his comrades try to interdict drug flights, or get information on the drug trade.
But in Gulf War 1, “Operation Desert Storm” in early 1990’s, he piloted an F-111 fighter-bomber, at the tip of what is called the ‘Arrow’ of Pathfinder missions, flying an airplane that had no armaments at all, but miles ahead of his other four accompanying heavily armed companions – two F-15’s and two F-16’s.
His job was two-fold – to use his on-board equipment to jam any Iraqi radio and radar transmissions, and, more dangerously, to also attract enemy fire, so that his squadron comrades could hone in for the kill.
Needless to say, he considers his exploits now as a DEA pilot to be “cake walk”, very safe by comparison.
When I think about PTSD, I also think back to the time way before I played Tests, when the likes of Sir Everton Weekes played for West Indies.
To go to tours of Australia and New Zealand, even England, they had to travel by boats to get to their destinations, very stressful journeys that took as long as a month.
How more sports-persons do not suffer more debilitating break-downs is a wonder, as expectations, and stakes, are always so very high, as if those participating were not humans too.  Enjoy!

 

---

---