Michael Yardy, Former England Cricketer HARDtalk

the polls before a recent corruption scandal dented her support.

Now on BBC World News, it's time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur.

Elite professional sport is a well rewarded but unforgiving business.

It requires not just talent but immense determination, and

resilience under pressure. Top performers need a particular kind of

mental strength. What happens when they lose it, when self-doubt and

depressing kick in? My guest, Michael Yardy, was a

and World Cup winner in 2010, whose international career ended

Why have so many cricketers suffered from mental torment?

one-day cricketer Michael Yardy, welcomed HARDtalk. Thank you. Your

career is one with many highs and lows. I want to take you back to the

beginning. Your prowess as a young boy and a young cricketer. You must

have felt at that point as a young kid, going through County schemes

and development trips, you must have felt that you could do anything

because you were really good? Yes, I think that I enjoyed it. That's all

you look at, that's what you play for. Look at any outcomes or

performing, you just do it for enjoyment. You are one of your best

in your generation in Sussex. You are a star as a kid. People looked

at you and said to me, that boy could play for England. Yes, but at

the time, it is more about enjoyment. I had a nigh on what I

wanted to get to, but I very much enjoyed the game and playing with

that air of no responsibility. And immediate, he became a fully fledged

professional and had some very successful years at Sussex. When did

you first think yourself, I'm not altogether enjoying this? Perhaps

the first feeling on a pitch or a round of cricket that it wasn't

straightforward, not necessarily coming naturally. I think around

2008. I've always been quite an intense character, especially

playing cricket, I have always been desperate to do well and succeed. In

2008 that kind of tipped over the edge, where things won't kind of

normal. I was struggling to get to the games... You literally had to

drag yourself. Yes, there were times when my wife would go to drop off

the kids and expect me to have gone to cricket, she would come back and

I was still there. They seem like little things but that has a big

impact. and think, it's a dream, I would

love to get paid for it. I was feeling these thoughts,

feeling guilt because this is something I have

worked for, I should be enjoying it, It is a dream and all of a sudden,

I am feeling thoughts It was even at the stage where

I was really disliking it. You're desperate,

you should be enjoying it. But you are not and you cannot

think of anything worse. Add to that, more than most sports,

you're away from home a lot. In the county game in England,

obviously you're travelling around the country playing, but if you are

good, and you were good enough, particularly in the one-day format,

to get into the England team. By 2008, you were being picked

for tours and you're going away And I think, you know,

that is part of the job. Just

by playing international cricket, but for me, that is probably part

of why I had the illness, It is a small part

of why the illness came. You say the illness,

at what point did you realise that I think you would say, certainly,

you have said in the past that there was a form

of obsessive-compulsive disorder. That this was sort of a diagnosis,

but when did you realise you had I did not for three years,

there were certain incidents in my life away from cricket where

there was abnormal things. We lived in Australia,

so I became obsessed that we were going to get broken into

in the house, to the stage... It was not a case

of double-checking, For me in my mind,

it was going to happen. It was a case of

when we got broken into. I was waiting for my wife

and children to go to bed and then I would put chairs

in front of doors, do all sorts... And to prepare myself mentally

for what would happen. That is why I think cricket plays

a part, but I also think it has got Even then, I knew it was abnormal,

but I did not really understand if I just got that in my head

and that was it. It sounds like high stress,

high anxiety that you're having to deal with and the next day,

whether you have slept or not, you have to go to the cricket field

and you are going to have to perform I wonder, and this reflects not just

yourself but other cricketers I have spoken to, like Marcus Trescothick,

the great England batsman, who suffered from terrible depression,

was there anyone you could talk to? Was it something you could

express in the dressing room? Again, at this stage I did not know

what it was, I could not express it. It was only when I got to September

2010, I was playing for England actually, I was not playing,

I was the 12th man for that game. Pakistan in Southampton

and I woke up that day and I then spoke to my wife

and said I cannot do this any more. You said you were not even

going to the ground? It was that vicious cycle,

I know I have got to go to the ground, because this is part

of what I had to do. It is my job,

there was a World Cup coming up, And it was, but in my mind, I did

not physically think I could do it. I could physically do it, but

in my mind I did not think I could. I went and saw the coach,

Andy Flower, and opened up You say you opened up,

did you break down? It was all a kind of release,

I suppose. He was very understanding

and helpful. The weird thing about that is,

you were at the top of your game, as you mention, the World Cup,

you were part of the team that won And yet that sort of professional

power and real success does not People might think, sportsmen might

get depressed when they are not doing very well, but you were

suffering depression and actually, That period of time, the World Cup

was May 2010, a month after that was Again, that was cricket related,

the frustration, incidents where I think, I suppose,

it was out of character. Does it come from poor

performance or does it lead you to poor performance, because you have

all these extra things going on. I guess sportsmen, sportsmen and

women, need that one-dimensional focus on what you are doing and you

clearly did not have it at times. Let us get to the point where I

think we can say, your international career came to

a crashing halt and that was 2011. You were part of an England squad

that was in an international tournament in England and Sri Lanka

and I believe that at the time you were in Sri Lanka, part of the team

waiting to see who your next opponents would be and you, in the

end, just quit. You had to get out. It was interesting,

we had been to Australia and spent a lot of time there and I

felt good being in Australia and it was only the first few days, I think

it was Bangladesh, that I started to I missed the first game

and played the next two or three and then I was left out

and there was a long period between finding out who our next opponents

were and I got worse and worse. It just got to

the stage where people were telling I tried my best to hide

what I was going through. You're taught to show mental

strength and not weakness. That is something I have

always tried to do. It is rife in sport,

but when it is behind closed doors, I used the word at the beginning

of the story, it is a difficult story to tell in many ways,

but I used the word unforgiving and It is about winning and losing,

quite a simple straightforward When you quit,

as you have indicated, you were not playing that well, your bowling and

your batting was not at its best. This is what one of England's

most famous ever batsmen said. He said,

Michael Yardy must have been reading my comments about his bowling and it

must have upset him, obviously it He obviously did not know

that you were mentally ill. I think I have said,

in the 50 over format, I struggled I remember coming home

and listening to the television and there was a lot on this

because there was a big reaction to As you say, he was not aware,

so I have no grudges towards him. Have you spoken to him

about it since? A lot of people pointed to that

and suggested that he was out of order at the time, but his point was

that he could have had no way of No, no, I have never spoken to him

about it. I mean, what you hope with mental

illness, whether guys play Test cricket for England or anyone

in the street, is that you want to It is not always

about how you're doing in your job or, in my case, cricket,

there are underlying issues. Just to finish up on the struggle

you have had, throughout the last seven years before you

retire to stay on the cricket field You walked out of the England camp

and that pretty much was the end of your international career,

but you went back to Sussex. Even though you had had all this

trouble, you were determined to There is one more extraordinary

moment I want you to discuss with me and I think when you were trying to

recover, be open and recover from the illness, you were in a game

against Middlesex and when you're actually on the field,

and then you walked off. I got to

the stage, where I have this feeling

I had to be off the field. I said to the umpire, I think, he

looked at me, and I said I have some The captain at the time,

Murray Goodwin, he is captain, I said I was going off and I broke

down in the changing room. It was just the place, I did not

feel I could be in that place at I cannot describe why,

I felt I could not be It was overwhelming and I got

off the pitch. As I mentioned, other cricketers,

Marcus Trescothick and Jonathan Trott,

long-time players in the England team, they discussed similar, not

altogether the same, but similar When you look at the game today,

do you think cricket is fully aware now of the intense pressures that

come with the game, particularly Do you think they look

after players well enough? I think cricket is one

of the leaders in doing it. The Professional Cricket Association

are hugely proactive in the work Yes, helping treat people,

but also in my case, it is about I am thinking, in a sense, to me it

is strange that you were picked for the 2011 tour when Andy Flower knew

that in 2010 you had been so bad, so mentally disturbed that you had

not been able to perform your 12th It just seems odd in

a way that they would then take the I went to New Zealand first and, as

I say, I got to Australia and I was I worked with a psychologist,

there were building blocks in place and I would say that if someone had

had a hamstring injury, would you potentially take the risk, if they

had healed over a period of time? There were no signs,

I thought I was getting better. I felt everything was

going quite smoothly. I had things put

in place to help myself. I would not say it was a risk, it

was a risk like any other injury. In 2015 you retired - are you

happier not playing cricket? I think I am happier now than I was,

because I have had a lot of support and help with understanding mental

illness and how to deal with that. I do not know what normal is,

but I would say, I can go about my business, I understand when I have

a bad day, I know how to deal with I think it is not so much,

I miss cricket, because it was But I had to move on

and I want to do a new career. I started by asking you what you

were like as a young lad, being so good at cricket

at a young age, and I wonder whether there is a sense of waste about you,

looking back on your career. You were very good,

you made it to the England team and then you ended up chucking it

all away in your early 30s. A lot of players go on like

Marcus Trescothick, go Do you feel you sort

of threw it away? No, I would not change my career

for anything. I would say, I am probably still

raw, 16 years playing cricket, coming straight out of the game,

there are still lots of different emotions, and hopefully I will look

back fondly on what I have achieved, because a lot of people say to me,

when you started, you could not Absolutely, I think it takes a bit

of time for everything to calm down. Moving into a new career, looking

back fondly on what I have achieved. You say you still care a lot about

cricket and it has been your life. Let us talk about the state

of cricket. You have just retired,

you know the county game There is a big problem in cricket

today, the long-form format which the purist would say is real

cricket, whether it is at county level in England, or the five-day

Test match, the elite Test match. We have just had an England-Sri

Lanka test in the North of England I think Test match cricket will not

die, especially in this country and Australia, it is very interesting,

because Sri Lanka, yes, there were a few thousand people watching the

Test match, but when Australia over last year,

the hype around the Ashes Series Is that not

the problem with cricket today? There is imbalance

between the big three. A documentary maker made a film

called The Death of a Gentleman about cricket and the way that money

has driven cricket for a long time. Money in the sense that the big

three cricketing nations, England, Australia and particularly India,

now drive the decision-making process and on top of that, it is

quite clear that the real money and commercialisation lies

in the one-day game and particularly That is completely changing

the nature of the game. It has to be a place for both,

you have to keep... The great part of cricket is

the heritage and history. Obviously you have this new model of

2020 cricket that has come along. Clive Lloyd, the great West Indies

captain, said 2020 cricket has It has just given another

alternative to people to watch. If you are a West Indian cricketer,

the money you can make by being successful in, for example the IPL,

far outweighs the money you will get from going on tour with your

West Indies clubmates to England or Australia, and a lot of West Indies

cricketers are basically opting out of the test format simply to focus

on the one-day career. I think a lot of people speak

about the strong West Indies making It is still for me, playing was

always the pinnacle to play Test cricket and the pinnacle was always

to play in an Ashes Series. I was not good enough

to achieve it... If you had the choice

of a very lucrative, quarter or half million contract in the IPL

as opposed to the steady match fees of playing in an England Test

series, which would you have taken? I would

like to think I would take the test option, because what we spoke about,

you start playing the game, you grow up watching this big rivalry,

and that is what it was about. I hope if that decision had ever

come my way, A quick thought on money, we are

talking about 2020 where the money is - there has also been over the

last decade a real concern about the It was interesting for me to see

that Sussex had a case in 2011 where the Chief Executive said some

of our players were approached. You were still with Sussex

at the time. Were you ever approached to fix

a match? I think it is one

of the worst things to happen. We had a terrible situation

where the game was fixed. All the guys, I think we found out

in 2014 that they were convicted of match fixing and it really

affected how everyone was. When you watch cricket today,

and obviously sometimes there are bizarre incidents in cricket,

do you think, I wonder, You might see something

a bit different... You do not think, I wonder if those

guys might have been in on a deal? I don't think you

start thinking that. Incidents like that, for me,

it was a shock. It was not like, you know,

something strange happens, it may be a jovial comment, but you never

think any game is being fixed. It is what you do

and you do not want to think it, A final thought about sport - you

said you have a new career, you're training to be a sports psychologist

and you have three children. Does the psychologist in you,

with all the experience you have had about the difficulties, the

highs and lows of sport, does the psychologist and the father in you

think, God, I actually do not want my kids to grow up to be

elite athletes, sportspeople? No, no, definitely, if one

of my children was good enough and talented enough and wanted to,

I think that is the crucial thing, Again, I speak at this time raw out

of cricket, but I still have moments where I look back very fondly

on what it was and I would not If my kids were lucky enough, then I

would wholeheartedly support them. Michael Yardy, thank you very

much for being on HARDtalk.