Cricket and Freud

Edward Marriott speaks to former England captain Mike Brearely, one of the country's senior-most psychoanalysts, about the inextricable bond between Test cricket and psychoanalysis and their relevance to a world which demands quick results. Read the interview in the July issue of Prospect Magazine.

Today—at the start of a new Ashes series, arguably the most intense of all cricketing encounters—both long-form psychotherapy and long-form cricket seem in decline. In a quick-fix world there appears to be less tolerance for approaches—whether sporting or psychotherapeutic—that take time. In May, Chris Gayle, the West Indies’ captain, said that he “wouldn’t be so sad” if test cricket died out. Gayle, like many big stars, has made a fortune from the Indian Premier League, and clearly prefers the shorter Twenty20 game. The meagre 4,000 tickets sold for the opening day of the second test against the West Indies on 14th May seemed to indicate that English crowds, too, shared some of his feelings.