Yardy's depression exacerbated by life on the road
In the Guardian , Mike Selvey says Michael Yardy "will not be the last England player to leave a tour early for the sake of his mental health."
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
In the Guardian, Mike Selvey says Michael Yardy "will not be the last England player to leave a tour early for the sake of his mental health."
One morning in Canberra in the winter of 2006-07, Trescothick and I were standing together by the hotel breakfast room toaster having a natter. He was in a fine mood and looking forward to the series. This was no front. Two days later, he had been spirited from the country and was on his way home. No support in the world was able to ensure that once he left the security of his family environment the curtain would not descend once more. It was a great loss to England cricket but quite literally saved Trescothick's sanity.
The back story with Yardy is not dissimilar. By all accounts he has been battling the illness for some considerable while, but this has been a long winter. He was not part of the England Ashes squad, but, in the knowledge he would be involved in the one-day matches that followed he played cricket in New Zealand before joining the squad after the fifth Test in Sydney. So he too has been on the road effectively for five or six months.
If nothing else, Michael Yardy’s illness reminds us that sportsmen are not immune from a condition that is estimated to affect one fifth of the population at some stage of their lives. Depression strikes down people from all creeds and classes, even those who enjoy fame, money and glamorous perks, writes Simon Briggs in the Telegraph.
In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says: "This article is being written in the confines of a well-appointed hotel room, the 21st that this reporter has stayed in this winter (two, maybe three, to go). Some have not been so well-appointed. Hotel rooms drive players crazy eventually, they drive reporters crazy and anybody who says that you both have the best jobs in the world – and we all know it, we can never forget it – should remember Mike Yardy and the players to come, for whom they are not all days of wine and roses."
Meanwhile, writing for BBC Sport, Michael Vaughan remembers being captain when Marcus Trescothick suffered from depression. Trescothick's instance came as a surprise because no cricketer had really gone public with such a problem earlier, says Vaughan, and this highlights the fact that the international cricket schedule is ridiculous.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo