From 2009 to 2011, cricket was the farthest thing on my mind, reveals Robin Uthappa
Uthappa was dropped from Indian team in 2008
|BCCI
Robin Uthappa has spoken about the times he had to deal with suicidal thoughts and depression between 2009 and 2011 and added that cricket was the farthest thought from his mind. Uthappa has further spoken about the fact that he started to understand himself before seeking professional help.
One of the downsides of international cricket, the grind that offers a bedrock to many sporting dreams, has been the fall from grace. The inability to sustain the success at the top level got the better of many cricketers over the years, with English cricket being the major victim of it. The Indian cricket is no stranger either, with Praveen Kumar speaking about it a few months ago. Robin Uthappa now spoke about the suicidal tendency he had after being ousted from the Indian side.
"I remember around 2009 to 2011, it was constant and I would deal with that on a daily basis. There were times where I wasn't even thinking about cricket, it was probably the farthest thing in my mind. I was thinking about how I would survive this day and move on to the next, what's happening to my life and in which direction am I heading. Cricket kept my mind off of these thoughts but it became really difficult on non-match days and during the off-season,” Uthappa told PTI.
"On days, I would just be sitting there and would think to myself on the count of three, I'm going to run and jump off of the balcony but something kind of just held me back. I started the process of just understanding myself as a person. I then started to seek outside help to make those changes I wanted to make in my life," he said.
A neat and orthodox batsman, Robin Uthappa’s rise to the Indian team through his mind-boggling exploits in the 2005 and 2006 editions of Challenger Trophy, against the likes of Zaheer Khan, Murali Kartik and RP Singh, caught the eyeballs and he was propelled to the Indian side soon after. However, after being dropped from the Indian team in 2008, he had a few fairly ordinary years in domestic cricket and subsequently, depression got hold of him.
"For some reason there, no matter what I did or how hard I worked in the nets, I was just not able to score a run off my bat. I would spend hours in the nets to get it right but that would just not happen. Some part of me was actually not willing to accept that I had a problem with myself...I think sometimes we don't accept the wrong and are unwilling to do so and it is really important to have the acknowledgement. The unwillingness to accept is the no one issue and especially for men, who find it difficult to accept their mental issues," he added.
