Published: Mar 19, 2014, 12:32 AM (IST)
Edited: Mar 19, 2014, 03:24 AM (IST)
London: Mar 18, 2014
Former England bowler Matthew Hoggard has said that he fears batsman Jonathan Trott‘s revelations about the real reason behind his exit from his team’s disastrous Ashes 2013 tour has damaged the cause of mental health care in cricket.
Trott’s insistence recently that he was not depressed but suffering from burn-out, has sparked a furious backlash with former England captain Michael Vaughan saying he felt ‘conned’ and warned Trott that skeptical teammates will feel he fled from Australia.
The fall-out from Trott’s revelation has only added to the England and Wales Cricket Board‘s (ECB) series of public relations howlers, including the retirement of Graeme Swann, sacking of Kevin Pietersen and the stepping down of Andy Flower as coach.
According to the Mirror, Hoggard, who is England’s eighth most successful Test bowler with 248 wickets, said that Trott’s use of the word ‘nutcase’ was ‘disrespectful’ to those battling depression as it is a ‘serious business’.
Hoggard, who has seen first-hand teammate Marcus Trescothick dissolve into a tearful wreck before flying home from India consumed by depression in 2006, also said that Trott should not have played ‘vague and loose’ with the mental health of international sportsmen as conjecture about illness does nobody any favours.
Hoggard hopes that the next time an England player goes to the management on tour and says he is struggling with anxiety, depression or stress; he deserves to be treated with sympathy, not suspicion.
