In a detailed piece for Cricket Monthly magazine in April last year, the journalist Gideon Haigh resurrected a long-forgotten story. It concerned Kenny Barrington, the great Surrey and England cricketer of the 1960s, and one of the most tenacious and redoubtable batsmen this country has produced; a player who was said to walk to the crease as though the Union Jack were draped around his shoulders.
Haigh recalled a book Barrington published in 1968 called Playing it Straight, in which the cricketer laid out frankly the problems that caused him to take a break from the game two years earlier. The phrases, little used then, stand out now: the “agony”, “inner torment” and “dreadful haze” that consumed him with the result that he “felt no emotion about anything” and had “no interest in anything”. Gradually, his feeling returned but not until he had given himself a rest from the game.
Ben Stokes is the latest cricketer to feel that numbness and the need for a break, and if his story resonates more than Barrington’s at the time, it is because of two things: the first, is that these stories are becoming more common, as international sport demands more of its practitioners; the second, is that society is now more willing to listen and is more understanding of those who speak out, as Stokes did on Friday when he stepped away from the sport for an “indefinite” period to “prioritise his mental wellbeing”.
Since stepping away, Stokes has received a, thankfully, sympathetic response. Between Barrington and Stokes came Marcus Trescothick, with his seminal book Coming Back to Me, which outlined his mental health issues in an open and honest way. After Trescothick came Jonathan Trott, broken on the wheel of consecutive Ashes engagements and a tendency to push himself to the limit in search of perfection. Others have followed, such as the Australians Moises Henriques and Glenn Maxwell, and now Stokes. There is no stigma any more.
If there was surprise in the announcement then that was only because it was so unexpected and because Stokes has seemed so indestructible in the past. This is the man who, single-handedly, kept England in the Ashes on that memorable day at Headingley in 2019 and who did more than anyone to win the World Cup at Lord’s one month earlier. As with Barrington, Stokes plays as though draped in the national flag but it is often those who seem the least vulnerable who can be most at risk, and Stokes has reached a point where a reset, of priorities and of the balance between sport and life, is required.
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The game has always been demanding. The long days, the extended periods within those days that encourage the mind to wander — waiting to bat, or sleeping on a pair, for example — make cricket a peculiarly arduous game mentally, which was true of players of the past as well as those now. Haigh also recalled that Barrington played 274 first-class games in the seven years before his troubles began, but what has changed now is the intensity of the schedule and the incessant demands on the players within that schedule.
Whereas many of those games for Barrington would have been played away from the cameras — touring life and the first-class summer in England had inbuilt periods that allowed for cricket to be played in second and third gear occasionally — international cross-format cricketers such as Stokes have little chance to play at anything other than full-tilt now. Addicted to television money, administrators have allowed a schedule to develop with wall-to-wall international matches played all year round, with all the scrutiny and demands that come with it.
Covid has clearly added an extra layer of suffocation, especially for England players who have been asked to play more than double the number of days, for example, than their Australian and South African counterparts. With Covid has come quarantines and bubble life: international sport often feels like a cocooned existence anyway, with long days, weeks and sometimes months shuttling from hotel to ground and back, and Covid must have accentuated that slightly surreal existence.
It is tricky to generalise, because the circumstance of each individual is different. For Trescothick, travel and being away from home flicked a switch; Trott’s problems were more performance-related, as he struggled to cope with the unhealthy expectations he placed upon himself. As well as a build-up of pressure felt over an astonishing three-or four-year period, Stokes has had to deal with the death of his father, Ged, in December and the injury to his finger, which has structurally healed but remains problematic. In essence, these details are by the by: the consequences were that each reached a stage where they felt, for whatever reason, unfit and unable to continue and in need of a break. Like a tendon, the mind can be worn down and in need of a rest.
If there is a generalisation to be made it is that these individuals are often of a type; those who give a tremendous amount to others around the team, who find it hard to say no, as well as those who push themselves to extremes. It has been written that Stokes’s brutal training regime can be seen as a form of self-punishment after the fallout from the fracas in Bristol that caused him to miss the 2017-18 Ashes. Whether that theory carries any weight I’m not sure, but there is no doubt that he has pushed himself to the limit in the years since.
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And there, of course, is the inherent danger and paradox of elite sport. Now that standards are uniformly high in the professional era, it is the small margins that separate the very best and seeking those gains can encourage an unhealthy obsession in training or practice. To be great, you often have to be prepared to sacrifice levels of normality, but by doing so athletes open themselves up to potential danger. For all that elite sport demands dedication, any young athlete would be well advised to try to find and maintain some balance in life.
Stokes will be missed this summer as, fully fit, he is a tremendous asset to any team. Supporters will miss his whole-hearted commitment as well: Stokes in full flow as a match hangs in the balance is one of the great sights in the sport. It is to be hoped that he will come back, rejuvenated and fully engaged with the sport again: he has given a lot to the English cricket over the past few years, and the game can afford him some space in return.
