Australia fast bowler Jhye Richardson has revealed he’s been diagnosed with clinical anxiety. Richardson has played three Tests, 15 ODIs and 18 T20Is so far and taken a combined 57 wickets in them.
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In an interview with cricket.com.au, the 27-year-old revealed that his condition exacerbated during IPL 2021 which was suspended midway through the season after several covid cases were reported inside the bio-secure environment of the T20 league.
With Australian government imposing travel ban, the players who had travelled to India for IPL were left stranded and unsure of how they will return home. Richardson was one of the those in limbo and feels he shouldn’t have traveled to India for the competition in the first place itself given he was not in the right headspace.
“A lot of it started during Covid. My trip to the IPL – I left home not in the headspace that I probably should have been,” Richardson told cricket.com.au.
“Then things sort of hit the fan while I was away, and everything with COVID and not being able to get home and stuff like that, it just toppled on top of each other. I think you don’t realise what sort of space you’re in until it becomes too much, which is why now I encourage a lot of young cricketers to work on their mental health – even if they think that they’re going okay,” he added.
With his condition worsening, Richardson eventually sought professional help.
“Everything just got to a point where there was some professional intervention that needed to happen,” he said.
“I’m not willing to go into a whole lot of detail, but I just landed in a spot where things were bad enough that I stepped back and said, ‘I can’t continue thinking the way that I am’ and (needed) to get a bit more education and knowledge about how the brain works,” he added.
Richardson says Western Australia Cricket Association has been quite supportive.
“A lot of the judgment (regarding mental health) has gone nowadays. Within our (WA) group we trust everyone with the way that they want to go about things. People are individuals – they train different ways, they think differently,” he said.
“The resources within cricket nowadays make the process of dealing with mental health issues a lot easier and there is a lot more education there. But as someone who has dealt with anxiety, not just on the field but away from cricket and day-to-day living, it can be quite exhausting,” he added.
Richardson’s career has been impacted by injuries and he’s been working on his fitness with eyes firmly fixated on Test comeback.
“I know what it’s like to play Test cricket and I desperately want to get back there. I’ve only had tastes of it in the last couple of years, but knowing that when I do get back there, I do have fun playing cricket, which is why we all begin to play in the first place. I know if I get a decent crack at it, hopefully I can showcase some skills that allow me to get to the next level. I want to play Test cricket again. I want to play for Australia again,” he said.
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