Ben Stokes Reveals He Thought He Would Never Play Again After He Took A Break From The Game
Updated - 23 Aug 2022, 05:13 PM
England Test captain Ben Stokes said on Tuesday that he feared he might not play again after taking a year off to focus on his health.
Stokes made the decision to prioritise his mental health after experiencing a series of panic attacks following his father’s death from brain cancer almost two years ago.
Stokes told the BBC about his mental state, “It wasn’t over two weeks or a couple of months. It built up over a long, long time, maybe even like three or four years.”
Stokes speaks extensively about his mental health in an Amazon documentary, which will be released on Friday and features interviews with past and present England players, including teammate Stuart Broad.
I Was Really Angry With The Sport: Ben Stokes
Broad says in the documentary that he could see Stokes never playing again, and when asked if that possibility had occurred to him, he said, “At the time, yeah. That’s where I was at.
“It was like I had a glass bottle I kept on throwing my emotions into. Eventually, it got too full and just exploded. At the time, yeah. That’s where I was at. I had never spoken to Stuart about that through my time away,” Stokes added.
“I spoke to him a lot through that period but just general chit-chat, nothing too serious. I had never said the words to him, that I can’t play again, but the fact that he got that feeling was an eye-opener to me that things were quite bad.”
So I had a real thing with cricket at the time I took a break. I was really angry at the sport because it was dictating when I could see my dad,” Stokes said.
Stokes has just one Test till now as captain.
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