'I Needed to Step Away' - Nic Maddinson Opens Up on Mental Health Battles

Cricketnext Staff | Updated: January 16, 2019, 3:57 PM IST

Victoria batsman Nic Maddinson has opened up on the mental health battle that forced him to take a break from cricket in 2017.

The 27-year-old was in solid form in the domestic circuit and even made his Test debut in November 2016, before he decided to walk away from the game only a couple of months later, citing personal reasons.

Maddinson said it was during the 2016-17 BBL he felt something wrong.

“Probably at moments throughout the Big Bash. It’s similar to when you hear Olympians say they try so hard and put their whole life into one goal and when you don’t get it you don’t really know what to do with yourself,” Maddinson told Fox Cricket.

“I still enjoyed playing and I still enjoyed being out on the field, but everyday activities like getting up and going to the gym or going to training, doing those extra little things I lost a bit of drive to do.

“Training in the nets all week for a Shield game, I flew down to Melbourne and just in the nets in the space of about two minutes I knew it wasn’t the place I needed to be. I needed to get away and take a break, refresh mentally.

“I was facing balls from Trent Johnston, the coach, and I thought ‘this is not what I want to do today’. I walked outside the MCG and across to Punt Road and made a few phone calls, and that’s when I decided I needed to step away for a couple of games.”

Maddinson said it was quite difficult for him to reveal this news to his parents.

“A bit of a relief in the end. Being uncharted territory (for me) in terms of taking a break from the game, I wasn’t sure what to expect or how it would go down,” he said.

“I called my parents and let them know what was going on and it was positive reinforcement I was doing the right thing.

“It was quite emotional telling my parents because to tell them I was going to miss a couple of games and I wasn’t in the right head-space to play cricket was the hardest thing to tell them. But they were very accepting of it.”

Maddinson has shifted his base from New South Wales to Victoria and scored a superb 162 in a Sheffield Shield encounter earlier this season before breaking his wrist in the very next innings. He is currently playing for Melbourne Stars in the BBL 2018-19.