Ben Stokes, the captain of the England Test team, talks to BBC Breakfast about putting mental health first. Ben Stokes, who is the captain of the England Test team, says he was afraid he might never play again when he took a break from cricket for mental health.
All-rounder Ben Stokes stopped playing cricket for five months in 2021 to focus on his mental health. The 31-year-old had panic attacks because he had kept his feelings inside for years.
“It felt like I had a glass bottle where I kept putting my feelings. “It just blew up when it got too full,” Stokes told BBC Breakfast.
Ben Stokes has had a hard few years. In 2020, he took compassionate leave from cricket to be with his dying father Ged, who had brain cancer. Ged Stokes died later that year.
Then, when he went back to the sport, he broke his finger. He had to hurry to get back to captain England’s limited-overs teams after a Covid outbreak in July 2021 forced them to pick a whole new team.
Ben Stokes took a break after that series against Pakistan. He will come back for the Ashes in Australia in December 2021. In April of this year, he was named Test captain.
In a long interview, Stokes talked about:
- The long-term effects of what happened in Bristol in 2017 that got him charged with affray
- His father’s death, which had a big effect on his career,
- Changing the way we talk about breaks for mental health
Ben Stokes was talking about his documentary, “Ben Stokes: Phoenix from the Ashes,” which will start airing on Amazon Prime on August 26.
‘I’d Give off This Big Tough Northern Lad Bravado’
In the documentary, Stokes talks openly about his struggles and says he wants to help change the way people think about mental health breaks.” I gave an interview in which I acted like a big, tough northern boy with tattoos. He told the BBC, “I thought, ‘Well, I’m tough, but that doesn’t mean I can’t struggle mentally.'”
“When [England pace bowler] Stuart Broad said he could see me not playing again, that struck me as one of the most powerful things about that.
“I hadn’t talked to Stuart about that while I was gone. During that time, I talked to him a lot, but it wasn’t about anything important.
“I had never told him those words, but the fact that he felt that way showed me that things were pretty bad at that time.”
Ben Stokes said that he was “annoyed” that his break was seen in a bad light when he became Test captain earlier this year.
He said, “It seemed like people thought I couldn’t do the job because I took a break last year.”
“I thought, ‘What does that have to do with being captain of England?’ If anything, it shows that you can do anything, even if you want to take a break.”( Watch Premier League)
‘Such A Big Inspiration To Me Had Left The World’
Ben Stokes’s father played rugby league for New Zealand at the international level, and his son said that his dad “made me who I am today.”
“When he wasn’t there, he couldn’t text me to say ‘well done,’ and that stopped. That was one reason why I ended up where I was,” Ben Stokes said. “Someone who had been a big inspiration to me had left the world and me. Then I had to figure out what got me going again, what inspired me.
“I was very proud to be able to show what he means to me and share him with other people.”
Ben Stokes also said that his father is helping him become the kind of captain of the cricket team he wants to be.
“I wouldn’t ask someone to do something I wouldn’t do myself,” he said. “I learned that from him.”
“Even though he was sitting in a chair and dying of cancer, he was worried about how it would affect me and how little time I would spend with him. He taught me to just think about other people.”(Motomu Kiyokawa Died At The Age of 87)
‘Bristol Will Still Affect My Life In Future
In September 2018, Ben Stokes was found not guilty of affray for a fight that happened a year earlier near a nightclub in Bristol. After what happened, England didn’t pick him for the team for a few months.
“My wife Clare says that just because the verdict came out, you shouldn’t think that was the end of that case,” he said
“That thing that happened in Bristol will still affect my life and our lives in the future. Just as an example, we’ll have to sit down with our kids someday and explain what happened there.
“As they get older, people will definitely ask them about it, and we don’t want them to be in the dark about it and then come home and ask about it.”
Ben Stokes played in a Test for England both before and after the trial, but he says he had trouble once he got off the field at the end of the day.
“It was great to be in the dressing room at the time because I was with other people,” he said.
“The hardest part was going back to my room at the end of the day. I didn’t want to leave the hotel, so I just sat on my bed.
“Those times were the hardest and most lonely for me. That was the beginning of another part of the Bristol thing for me.”
Stay tuned for more updates, Lee Daily.
