Thorpe to Johnson: Are cricketers more prone to mental health issues?

Graham Thorpe. David Johnson.

The life and times of the two international cricketers had been as different as chalk-and-cheese. Yet, there is an eerie similarity in the way their end came at a premature age with both deciding to take their own lives – in a space of two months.

If the death of Thorpe, 55, last week was a piece of bad enough news, his wife Amanda’s disclosure in an interview on Monday that he committed suicide was shocking – to say the least. Unlike the West where talk about depression or suicidal tendencies are not a taboo, there was no confirmation in the case of the former Indian fast bowler with a short career. However, the perception of the police was that Johnson had taken his own life by falling to death from the fourth floor of his apartment in Bengaluru.

The proximity of dates of the two suicides, however unrelated as they are, points finger at a malaise which is beyond the remit of the cricketing establishment. Both his wife and daughter admitted that it was a case of acute depression – which saw Thorpe, a member of select band of England batters who have played 100 Tests, taking his life as the police found his body on the railway track near Esher railway station.

“Despite having a wife and two daughters whom he loved and who loved him, he (Graham) did not get better. He was so unwell in recent times and he really did believe that we would be better off without him and we are devastated that he acted on that and took his own life,” Amanda said in a conversation with Michael Atherton, an erstwhile teammate of Thrope, in The Times.

“For the past couple of years, Graham had been suffering from major depression and anxiety. This led him to make a serious attempt on his life in May 2022, which resulted in a prolonged stay in an intensive care unit,” his wife revealed.

To call it tragic is an understatement as it brings under the scanner the issue of mental health among elite sportspersons – be it the all-time swimming great Michael Phelps who confided to battling with suicidal thoughts to cricketers, past and present. The case of David Bairstow, the flamboyant former England wicketkeeper and father of Jonny may have been the most conspicuous case in living memory, but it’s worthwhile to fall back on an interesting study which tries to delve into the reason behind suicides in cricket.

In his dissertation Suicide in cricket: A sociological explanation for University of Chester in 2013, research scholar Shaun McNee tried to find a patten in such cases. While the examples of Thorpe, Bairstow or the likes of Audrey Faulkner (South Africa), Jim Burke (Australia) and Harold Gimblett (England) are the most publicised cases over decades – McNee referred to David Frith’s Silence of the Heart: Cricket Suicides in 2001 which came out with some startling statistics.

Frith, a former Wisden editor, wrote in his book that suicide in cricket is of particular concern as 4.12 per cent of cricketers in South Africa take their lives, in New Zealand the suggested suicide rate of cricketers is 3.92 per cent and in Australia 2.75 per cent. In the UK, Frith’s  headline grabbing statistic that English cricketers are almost twice as likely to commit suicide as the average male is based on the suicide rate for British men being 1.07 per cent with the suicide rate for cricket players being 1.77 per cent.

What could be the possible reasons behind it? Frith, who drew on the experiences of nine case studies from the cricketers’ autobiographies, pointed a finger at cricketers’ long hiatus from home putting a strain on their relationships. Divorces are known to be another tipping point for such drastic steps but honestly speaking, each case is different.

 The case of former Indian speedster Johnson, for example, is a case in point. With no member of the family having spoken up, media reports pointed at possible depression in the Karnataka paceman who was struggling financially and had turned to alcoholism. At 52, he could not carve a niche in the usual vocations for ex-players like TV punditry or coaching and this could have led to frustration.

Behind all the glitz, there lies a lonely world of a retired cricketer – and we ought to be of mindful of it!