Mental health is a big challenge as it is a tough game, reveals Rahul Dravid

Glenn Maxwell, Nic Maddison, and Will Pocovski are some of the players that have taken breaks from cricket in order to deal with problems related to mental health and ever since, mental health has been a topic that has been discussed widely in the cricketing fraternity. Director of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) Rahul Dravid, too, believes that mental health is an important issue and it needs to be dealt with properly due to the toughness of the modern game.

"It is a big challenge. This is a tough game. There is so much competition, a lot of pressure, and kids are playing all year round now. It is a game in which you do sometimes spend a lot of time waiting around, having a lot of time to think," Dravid told ESPNCricinfo.

Working with the youngsters, Dravid has seen times where players have undergone a massive emotional shift after success or failure that might have affected their mental health and thus he believes that it is very important to stay focused and balanced mentally.

"So, you really need to look after yourself on and off the field and look after stuff like mental health. That's again something that, as much as we talk to these boys about, it's really important to maintain a certain level of balance in everything you do," Dravid asserted.

"Be able to find that balance between not getting too excited when you succeed and not getting too disappointed when you fail. I just think being able to lead a slightly balanced life potentially helps," he further added.

Being the director of NCA and taking inspiration from the kind of backing that Cricket Australia has shown players like Maxwell, Dravid is hopeful of creating a centre at the NCA where the players could be vocal about their mental health and would be able to get a proper perspective to solve their mental health problems.

"We are also putting a few things in place at the NCA wherein we want to be able to give people an opportunity to talk about these things and address some of these things, and have people that they can speak to. So, yes, there has been some work on that as well, wherein eventually, we'll get to a point where hopefully we should have professionals on board. I think sometimes some of these things need to be handled by professionals," Dravid stated.

Dravid hopes that there will soon be arrangements of professionals at NCA that will be able to handle and monitor the mental health of the players better.

"I don't think some of the coaches, or some of us, have the ability to deal with some of the issues. Some things we might be able to, but there may be some things where we might need to look at professional help. It's one of the things we are definitely keen on doing at the NCA: giving some of these boys access to some level of professional help if they do require it," he concluded.

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