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Australia Fast Bowling Legend Mitchell Johnson Reveals Battle With Depression
Mitchell Johnson took 590 wickets across formats for Australia and was part of their 2007 and 2015 ODI World Cup winning squads.
Published: Oct 27, 2020, 03:21 PM (IST)
Edited: Oct 27, 2020, 03:21 PM (IST)
Australia fast bowling legend Mitchell Johnson is finding retirement tough and revealed he has been battling depression from a young age. Johnson retired from international cricket in 2015 but played in Big Bash League and the Indian Premier League for three more years before quitting all formats.
He took 590 wickets across formats for Australia and was part of their 2007 and 2015 ODI World Cup winning squads.
“Through my cricket career I actually just dealt with it (depression), it’s just about me now actually moving forward and taking it upon myself to be active with certain things, to keep my mind going,” Johnson said on Channel 7’s SAS Australia.
“I’ve found it tougher since retiring from cricket. All of a sudden, you’re not doing as much. You sort of lose your purpose a little bit,” he added.
The 38-year-old said the transition from cricket has been a tough period. “I struggle with, probably, confidence at times. I’m in that transition now where I’ve been out of playing cricket for about two years,” he said.
Retirement is something the left-arm pacer has found hard to deal with as cricket helped him block out depression.
“Yeah plenty of times. I found out I’ve got depression but I think the depression was something I’ve had even from a younger age. It (cricket) sort of blocked things out in a way. It sort of hid the depression, but there was a lot of times where you would go back to your room, you’re away from family and you start to dwell on things,” the 2009 ICC Cricketer of The Year said.
He reckons that the condition is in part to be blamed on a professional cricketer’s lifestyle too.
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“You have your moments where you struggle with it really bad and it can be tricky when you’ve got a lot of time to think about things,” he said. “You’ve just got no control whatsoever and your mind starts playing those tricks on you, you start thinking of the worst,” he said.