ANI, Colombo, Mar 26: Players can get into pretty dark places while on tour, especially if things don't go well. You might have a couple of bad games or be dropped and your mind can take you to places you don't want to go, says England off spinner Graeme Swann.
In an article for The Sun ahead of England's quarterfinal match against Sri Lanka on Saturday, Swann reveals that the England squad was shocked and very sad to hear about Michael Yardy flying home because of depression.
'Yards is a great lad, a very popular member of the squad and the most important thing is he gets well again as soon as possible. I think Yards might have confided in one or two of his closest mates on tour - Matt Prior is a particular friend as they have been at Sussex together for many years,' he says.
'But most of the squad didn't know the full extent of Yards' problems. Clearly, if it had reached the stage that Yards couldn't manage being on tour any longer, going home straight away to be with his nearest and dearest was the only decision to be made,' he adds.
'One thing I do know, however, is as international cricketers we are frequently away from home for months, often playing fairly meaningless matches scheduled purely to put silver in the coffers of some cricket board. I'm not going to bleat about the lifestyle - we normally stay in great hotels and have most of our whims and wishes attended to. But it is inevitable that the treadmill of playing, practising, flying and living out of a suitcase can take a toll,' Swann said.
'It has been well documented what can happen to people when they are away from home playing cricket. If they don't get those problems sorted, they can become worse. Marcus Trescothick would still be playing for England now but for his stress-related illness. There have been marriage break-ups and, down the years, cricket has a high suicide rate, too,' he added.
He also described the match against Sri Lanka on Saturday as a huge event that the boys were looking forward to.
'Sri Lanka are dangerous and I think we have the toughest quarter-final. But we've been here for a few days to adjust to the humidity, which is off the scale compared to India,' he surmised.