The recent incident involving England cricketer Brydon Carse has prompted a former professional cricketer to reflect on the darker realities of life in the sport, where constant judgement and the pressure to perform can drive players to destructive coping mechanisms.
The Pressure of Constant Judgement
Writing under the pseudonym The Secret Cricket Coach, the former player describes cricket as a brutal game where players are "basically being judged all the time." He recounts a young cricketer who would physically harm himself when he didn't score enough runs, explaining that while the act was extreme, he understood the feeling behind it: "Cricket meant that much to him. It meant that much to all of us."
The coach notes that nobody ever told the young player his value depended on his runs, but cricket had been telling him "in more subtle ways, for years." He draws parallels to the Carse situation, stating he doesn't know the player or the details beyond reports, but the incident "just felt familiar."
Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism
The author, who never drank during his playing career, observed that drinking was "completely normal" in professional cricket. Players who trained hard and obsessed over performances would then drink "extraordinary amounts of alcohol." He now believes some behaviours regarded as character or toughness are actually "ways of coping with being one."
Professional cricket causes physical pain, with fast bowlers often playing hurt and batters suffering broken fingers and deteriorating knees. The mental side is "probably more interesting," he writes, as failure is constant: "You can practise brilliantly all week, feel in great form and nick your first ball."
Identity and Worth in the Pathway
The judgement begins young, as children are selected through county age groups, academies, and contracts, with the question always being "are you good enough?" The system measures worth by "runs and wickets." After 10 or 15 years, a player's sense of worth becomes "wrapped up in being good at cricket."
He played with "incredibly confident cricketers who were also incredibly insecure people," noting that approval is always conditional. Players cope through drinking, drugs, obsessive practice, or playing injured. Humour and bravado often cover vulnerability, and he questions whether dressing-room culture has evolved as much as believed.
Finding Better Ways to Cope
Comparing cricket environments to the Army, the coach notes both place young people in enclosed worlds where the group becomes crucial. Alcohol in the military has been linked to stress and belonging, and cricket may have its own version. After games, players would drink to relax and "cricket gradually disappeared."
He argues that telling players alcohol is bad for them achieves little, as they already know. The real question is whether enough effort goes into "the person who has to live with being a cricketer." He asks where identity and values sit in the pathway, and how failure is taught when it happens constantly. "People find ways of coping whether we help them to or not," he concludes, "and if we don't give them good ones, we shouldn't be particularly surprised when they find bad ones."
