Cricket is a high pressure sport and environment. Fans don’t see it, but many cricketers experience anxiety, depression, stress and its side effects. Until recently, they mostly suffered in silence, but on a positive note, the culture has been changing.
On the first episode of our newly-launched business of cricket podcast, we wanted to focus on this critical issue. So our guest is Simon Cusden — a former England cricketer.
Cusden played for Kent County Cricket Club (2004-2006) and Derbyshire (2007), with a total of seven first-class and six List A matches. He represented England Under-19s in 2002-2003 and was the top wicket-taker against Bangladesh in 2004.
Cusden, who battled addiction throughout his career, experienced a major mental health crisis after retiring, but got through it thanks to the cricket establishment.
With the backing of England’s Professional Cricketers’ Association (the PCA) as well as its charity for supporting former cricketers, the Professional Cricketers’ Trust (previously known as the PCA Benevolent Trust), Cusden went to rehab and recovered.
Now eight years sober, Simon is a coach who helps athletes as well as other professionals and executives functioning in high-pressure environments. He spoke to us about his own journey, as well as the evolving awareness about mental health issues in sports in general and cricket in particular.
We hope you enjoy what he had to say as much as we did. Full transcript of our interview is below.
Transcript
Zee: And we’re here with our guest, Simon Cusden, affectionately known as Cuzzy Simon, thank you so much for joining us today.
Simon: Great to be here, Z.
What was your journey from professional cricketer to mental health coach?
Zee: So Simon, let’s jump right into it. You were a professional cricketer playing at the highest levels. Now you’re a coach and a consultant, and you’re very focused on helping people with mental health challenges and performance in high stress environments.
Why don’t you tell us about your journey from professional cricketer to the coaching that you’re doing now?
Simon: Basically my cricket career, I mean I brought addiction issues into my professional cricket career, I brought a whole range of what I now know are genetic, you know I’m an alcoholic, I’m in recovery, I’m eight years sober and I brought these things into cricket and so after my cricket career which didn’t, I didn’t fulfill any form of potential I would say probably because of addiction.
And because of a few things that were happening off the field and my inability, well, it’s hard to deal with things properly when you’re in active addiction. I ended up going to rehab, which was taken care of by the Players Cricket Association. This is a good, remember this be a good, must have been 10 years after my career ended. So I went on a very deep, dark journey into, you know, suicide attempts and all sorts of things.
Post rehab, I managed to turn that crazy addict’s mind of mine and my that sportsman that needs to be consistently driving myself. I managed to turn that into my recovery and understanding myself. And when I was in rehab, it was very much, you know, I couldn’t believe how little education I’ve been given around what thoughts, what are emotions, where do my thoughts come from? Where, who am I? Where am I going? Where have I been?
Like I suddenly became quite immersed in a very basic education in round what it is to have a mind and emotions. And then what I realized is most people are suffering and we don’t really understand ourselves. We understand the world and we understand cricket and we understand sport, but we don’t really understand what’s going on between, between our ears or, you know, why are people suffering? I guess my own.
lived experience then informed a path where people would pick up the phone and ask me, you know, what do I do if I, if I feel suicidal? What do I do if I’m addicted to alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping? What do I do if I’m depressed? What if I do and I’m confused? And I just started to sort of listen and hold the space. And then my twin boys were born. We have twin sons and
It was really, launched myself into it. You know, I launched myself into it. It’s like I’d be at home more and now a couple of years later, I’m privately coaching men who are in high performance positions, CEOs, you know, look at, law partners. I’ve got some of the athletes in there and, look, I’m not a therapist, so it’s not therapy. It’s more like, triage, you know, if you’re bleeding out, I can bandage you up and send you off to the therapist. And as you can imagine, I’m quite busy because a lot of people are struggling. And as I’m going along, I’m getting a better idea on what it is about high performance that creates issues, right? Because there’s a lot of addiction issues, there’s a lot of mental health issues, there’s a lot of bankruptcy and divorce and all sorts of issues with high performance athletes or lawyers, doctors, whatever it might be, whether it’s when they leave their career or during their career, it does sort of lend itself to poor health. You know, so that’s what I’m up to at the moment.
What was the environment like when you were a player?
Zee: Wow. That’s an incredible journey. And there’s a few things I’d love to unpack. So, let’s talk first about the environment, right? So you were, playing at, you know, the professional cricket levels in England, you know, about 20 years ago or so, back in that time, Simon, can you describe the environment in terms of the intensity and the stress? And also at that time, right, we’re talking a couple of decades ago, the awareness or the sensitivity to mental health issues.
Simon: Yeah, I mean, I haven’t been in changing rooms now, right? But I speak to plenty of people who are, and I would say there’s been a huge shift just globally and culturally, right? And as a society, we’re so much more switched on around, well, let’s call it vulnerability. I think something like COVID came along and made us all really aware of how vulnerable we are and how important wellbeing is. And, how devastating the death of a loved one can be. But I would say that 20 years ago, it wasn’t like that so much. My sister had cancer off the field. I was 20. I didn’t have any idea of the effect it was having on me. But it was a, I don’t remember anyone speaking to me about it. I don’t think I sought that out either.
And in some ways that was a good thing Z because what that meant I could do is I could leave my issues at home and I could go and play cricket. But that boundary, that line, right? It’s not as clear cut as we think. And we now know that happy happiness off the field improves performance on the field. And you can’t really make that delineation between, well, that’s, that’s not important. And this is important. So I pushed everything that was painful away and I threw myself into cricket, but as my cricket performances started to drop, I had nowhere to go. Home was painful, cricket was painful, and so I went in the only place I could, which was to drink alcohol and try and find pain relievers in the form of addictions. But it was, you know, a couple of weeks after my sister passed away of cancer, I was back in the nets being video-cameraed. There wasn’t a great deal of empathy or understanding and I…
You know, I have for a while there, I was pretty angry about that. I thought I kind of blamed that as to why my career may have not gone where I wanted it to go. But I also now realize that we’re all a byproduct of our environment. Right. And if you look at the, the culture before that and the culture before that and the culture before that, it just wasn’t really a thing. You know, you just didn’t speak about what was going on, especially if you were suffering or if you had vulnerabilities, especially if you wanted to get picked in a team, you know, the last thing you need to do is go to the coach and go, Hey coach! I’m not feeling great mentally because the guy’s about to pick the team. So I hope it’s better. I feel like it may be a lot better now. There’s certainly a lot more support in place.
Was this culture unique to cricket or found in all sports?
Zee: Yeah, definitely. And if you look at kind of the, the sort of the cultures historically of a lot of the big cricketing nations, right? Like, you know, Australia and England with sort of like tough male drinking cultures or South Asia, right? Where my family is from, where historically issues like mental health were not spoken about or stigmatized, I would imagine that in cricket, especially back then, the sport itself and the culture of the sport was not conducive to these types of conversations. Do I have that right? Was it particularly a vacuum in cricket or do you think that was the case equally in all sports?
Simon: I think probably most of the culture, not even sport, like I would say most industries, you know, because sport is a, at that level, sport is an industry, right? Like it’s an industry or you’re a professional. And I was being paid to do a job. And so if you just take the sports industry or the legal industry or any industry entertainment, and it was, you know, there’s a…at best there’s a ‘get the job done culture.’ And I would say at worst it’s a, you know, leave your, leave your stuff at the door. When I look back on that time, you know, I would say that my male role models weren’t the greatest. You know, there was things that I, that I, I couldn’t say out loud on the podcast would, would occur in changing rooms. And it’s, everybody knows that everyone knows that was where we came from.
And, in cricket, we saw Azeem Rafiq, you know, he stood up and said a few things and went to court and for whatever that may have done for cricket, I think what it did do is it said, you can’t, we have to be careful. We have to be mindful. You have to be aware of cultural differences of, you know, people’s mental health, people’s emotional health. Like we can’t be unaware anymore and get away with it because I don’t think we did get away with it.
I mean, look at mental health statistics now. I mean, look how many people are suicides, the number one cause of death in, in people under the age of 45, number two in the under the age of 65. If you look at where the 45 to 65 year olds were the way we were raised, something must have not been right for, for the amount of suicide that we see in us in our culture or the amount of chronic illness or the amount of diabetes or the amount of obesity or whatever it might be.
We’re not a healthy culture, right? We’re getting healthier, but we have to be really honest about it and go, people are suffering and people are struggling and people are opting to end their own lives. And there’s violence and it’s almost an unpopular thing to even talk about, but it’s real. And then if we look back at the way the culture was 20 years ago, you can kind of put one -on -one together and come to a, one -on -one does equal two. I mean, it was… It wasn’t particularly compassionate, empathetic, aware or kind.
Have attitudes now changed?
Zee: But now it seems like that’s changed, right? Between, you know, a few years ago, Ben Stokes took a mental health break. Virat Kohli, you know, it’s as big as it gets in terms of celebrity and status in the world, not just in sport, was talking about mental health challenges.
Simon: Almost polar opposite. I mean, it’s fantastic. I think about how many, you know, Ben Stokes as a great example of saying, I’m not okay, right, or his dad died, right, and he was open about his struggle. I mean, every, you know, people can relate to that.
The amount of young people that would be looking up to Ben Stokes and now feel validated to be not okay and to speak about their feelings. I mean, it’s a phenomenal thing. And for women, you know, I know that there are women who have missed tournaments because of their menstrual cycles and the awareness around menopause. And in these conversations of validating normal human beings, I say normal human beings, human beings who aren’t at the top echelon of their performance.
Right, and now it’s okay to be vulnerable and be okay because Ben Stokes is vulnerable. You know, and if Ben Stokes is struggling and he still can be a superhuman on the field, maybe it’s okay for me to be vulnerable and maybe I can still aspire to be great at something. So, you know, I think it’s absolutely fantastic.
Who were the first brave individuals to speak out about mental health?
Zee: Yeah. And it’s, and it’s more common and accepted now, right? Back in the day, you had sort of the exceptional sort of brave individual, like, I know Marcus Triskothic was one of the first to be most vocal, who was kind of like the beacon for, for this issue. and, and there were fewer voices. Now there’s more. I mean, did, did, can you talk a bit about, you know, back in the 40s,
Simon: Yeah, amazing. Amazing.
Zee: Been open about these things. How was that received and how did that empower others back then to be open?
Simon: Well, I think Zee in the beginning, I don’t think it did empower others. I think everybody was a bit sort of shocked and a bit confused. And I remember when Jonathan Trott came home from an Ashes tour, he was called all sorts of things, certainly by the Aussie media, they called him weak and these sorts of things. Now, this was pre pandemic, pre mental health awareness days and neurodiverse. I mean, the world is a different place. But I think when he first…
When Marcus Truscothic first said I have depression, I don’t think anybody really knew what that meant. That shows how far we’ve come because that was only 2000 and what would have been 2006 or something. So it’s only, you know, 18 years ago. I mean, that’s nothing really for him. I mean, I think about him a lot because he’s a trailblazer in terms of the amount of courage and the amount of, well, courage that would have taken to have come out and spoken about that, you know,
It was easy. It’s so much easier for me to say, I mean, one number one, I’m not Marcus Truscottic. Number two, because people have come before me and gone, no, hang on a second. I’m not okay. and another great example is, you know, you think about, there’s been cricketers who have quit the game and gone and done other things. I think of Alex Loudon, Alex Loudon, I played with Alex Loudon at Kent. He played for, Warwickshire, played for England. He quit cricket when his game was right at the top or, and Zari, I think the guy, the left arm spinner from Surrey, they’ve just quit and gone, no, I don’t want to be a cricketer. That was unheard of. You just, who did that 20 years ago? No, I think I want to go and work in London and be an investment banker. You know, now that happens more too, which I think is good.
What role did the PCA play in your recovery?
Zee: So going back to your story, Simon, one thing that you said that struck me is, you know, when you, when you went, when you turned to your network and people you knew, organizations you knew for help, you were, you know, you were well retired. This was several years after you were done playing cricket. But one of the places you turned to was the PCA, the professional cricketers association. and you know, like you said, you feel like you never achieved your potential. You didn’t achieve the star status you could, right? You weren’t Joss Butler or Ben Stokes crying for help. You were a former player from 10 years ago. And yet it seemed like they had a big hand in helping you get to where you needed to be. Talk to us a little bit about the PCA and the role they play in players’ lives, especially now, and how you think they’re doing.
Simon: Well, you know, I’ve played like eight games. You know, I was a professional cricketer for a while, but I’m a, I’m a nobody. If I compare myself to a Jos Butler, I’m a nobody. Right. And that’s what we do. We go Jos Butler, the club cricketer. Right. We do that. That’s normal and natural to do. So, you know, to be for everybody to be treated, once you’re a professional cricket player, you have lifetime membership. And Joss Butler wouldn’t get any more preferential treatment than someone who’s played one game.
It’s a shining light of how a culture should be, right? Because that’s equity, that’s equality. But it was amazing. And it took me a very long time to fully receive that because I couldn’t believe it for a long time.
Like, my God. I mean, I’m a council estate Englishman. There’s no money where I come from. And so for the fact that an institution could spend £20 ,000 plus on my seat in rehab, there was two things that happened. One, I was going to do anything I could to get sober because I felt so grateful. And I knew I wouldn’t let the PCA down because I felt so grateful to be there. And the second thing was, is it gave me an extraordinary perspective into cricket because when I got out of rehab, I went and spoke to one of the guys from the PCA and I said, thank you. my God, I can’t believe you put me through rehab. Alastair Cook, I played with Alastair Cook growing up. He’s been knighted, right? And the guy from the PCA said, Simon, there is no Alastair Cook. There’s no a hundred test matches without the cricketer that plays eight games. You know, how many people have to bowl long hops and half volleys Alastair Cook for him to get to playing a hundred tests, right?
And it was like, It opened up my eyes to what cricket is and what cricket is, is an ecosystem. You know, you can’t play cricket without your mum was driving people to the grounds or schoolers or whites or the grass has to be moan or, you know, the wicket has to be rolled. And I sort of saw cricket as this ecosystem, this culture, this family of, there is no Alastair Cook without one game Simon or two games Simon or, and it gave me a feeling of. It validated my experience of a few games because I was like, I suddenly felt very grateful to have even been a professional cricket player. And that was a huge shift from going from, my career failed to, my God, if I hadn’t become a professional cricket player, maybe I wouldn’t have gone to rehab. Right, because people from where I’m from, council estates.
They don’t go to rehab because the government waiting list is so long and they don’t have the money. And I was one of the lucky, I went from feeling very unfortunate to feeling very fortunate, which I think has been one of the biggest healings I’ve had coming out into recovery.
Zee: That’s amazing. Were there particular individuals or departments of the PCA that played an especially large role in your recovery?
Simon: I mean, you know, I could never, there’s no way of understating what the PCA has done for me. When I came out, they continued to support me through counseling and even just now as a member, knowing that if anything happened to me, that, you know, it’s a form of life insurance in some senses, it’s not long-term, but I just know that I’m a part of a community that would take care of things. That, you know, I…
There was a gentleman called Jason Ratcliffe, who was one of the early people who was involved, played for Surrey when I was playing. He was the one who picked up the phone and he was the one who got me approved to go into rehab. So, you know, I owe Ratas huge debt.
Zee: It’s amazing. And, you know, the PCA is, I think, the shining example. And my understanding is other professional cricketers associations sort of throughout the world in other nations have been evolving and have been developing and seem to be providing a lot of services for players in a lot of different cricketing countries, which is a great development.
Simon: Huge. Yeah, and I’ve had some involvement with say the ACA in Australia when I lived out there and they’re the same. And I think the PCA set the standard. The PCA have been around for a really long time. They’ve been around for 50 plus years, I think. But the level of support and involvement they’re at now is, I mean, the changes that have been made in the women’s game, the PCA, a lot of the PCA behind that.
The individuals that are there. I mean, it’s a fantastic organization. And it’s just, you know, my phone does ring. Cricketers, former cricketers, they do call me because, you know, I’m one of the cricketers who’s in recovery and they do say, how did you get sober? And I just say, ring the PCA. You know, there’s a 24 hour helpline. Give me a call when you’ve called them. I’ll be around. But I’m here because of 12 step programs, counseling, therapy, and the PCA.
Tell us about your coaching practice
Zee: That’s amazing. So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about how you are now giving back and, and, and what you’re doing. How do you hear from people? I mean, you’re, you’re coaching, practice. how do people come into your world? How do people come to you and, and, you know, how, if our guests are interested, how do they approach you?
Simon: Yeah, well, I guess it came about by accident, really. I mean, I’m, I’m far from a therapist. So, I’ve tried to steer really clear of that because I’ve had amazing therapists and I’m not a trained therapist. I, it was born because I realized a lot of people were struggling and I want to, part of my own recovery is to help. and I think of it more like triage, you know, you’re bleeding out psychologically.
I mean, people are dying psychologically. That’s why they choose to do the unthinkable. It’s really serious. And a part of my recovery is to be vocal and present in saying I’ve been there. and there is a way out and there is hope. There’s always hope. and then my niche within coaching is high performance males. So CEO of a big company.
Suffering silently is a part of my of my niche and you know I work with people who are suffering silently maybe due to shame you know men especially we have a huge sense of shame of failure and coming out and I work with a couple of decent sized law firms and they send me mail partners I do some work with the PCA my phone rings and it’s cricketers or you know I’ve got a football player and people like that and most of the time it’s just
I’m suffering. What do I do? Right. And it’s, I think of it more like brotherhood. You know, I read somewhere Z that people, and I’ll say men in this context, but it’s the same for women and it’s the same, but I read somewhere that men do not need therapists. They need brothers, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, nature and God. Right. And it was like, I sort of thought, God, that’s what’s got me sober. Right. Like it’s brotherhood. It’s.
And then women need sisters, mothers, grandmothers, and men need grandmothers. And we’re so disconnected that we need, you know, a place to go and go, God, I’m really struggling. And then we’re met by wisdom of elders. And if I look around myself into our culture, I mean, our elders are Boris Johnson and all these, you know, you were kind of elderlessness or our elderless and God bless Boris Johnson. But I mean,
There’s a sense of disconnection and we’re, you know, we’re, I read somewhere too, we’re drowning in information and starving for wisdom, right? Wisdom, proper wisdom, which is like.
Sometimes you can’t fix stuff. Sometimes you have to endure it. Right? Sometimes there’s no way out. You have to go through. That’s wisdom. Right? That’s proper wisdom that requires old school grit, determination, patience, grace, humility. And we don’t live in this world anymore. We live in the light. But if you’ve got a problem, you ignore it, numb it, distract yourself from it, or try and fix it, not just like be with it.
You know, we don’t know. I mean, I know in some cultures, death is at the forefront of the narrative because it’s the only thing that’s absolutely going to happen. But in the Western world, we’re petrified of death. So when grief and loss are just not spoken about. Only recently do we talk about postpartum issues. My wife had some postpartum after menopause. You know, these are subjects.
that we’re coming into. And I guess my role is to try and be someone who can connect people to wisdom. And the wisdom is, you know, I’ve had wise men say to me, sorry, mate, you’re, you’re screwed and tell me the truth. And it’s going to take you a really long time to get well. And you’re going to have to show up and it’s going to be horrible. And you might die. Right. That was the big thing. You might die, Simon, if you don’t get this, because addicts die all the time. so I try and be that…. as because I’m sober because of that.
Who are some people you admire in the cricket world and why?
Zee: Agreed. So Simon, shifting gears, last couple of questions, which we like to ask our guests, because first the cricket world is a community. I just want to ask you, who are a couple of people in the cricket world today that you really admire and why? And I’m going to ask for two types. One, a player and two, a non player, an executive, you know, or an agent or a member of sort of a governing board or anything. Right. So who’s a player in the cricket world you admire today and who’s someone who’s not on the field? A former player is fine, but who’s not currently a player who’s doing things that you admire.
Simon: That’s a really good question.
Kemal Roach. I like Kemal Roach because he wants, he’s turning his back on T20 and he wants to be a Red Bull cricketer and he’s just standing for something. And I love, I love T20 cricket. I’m going to go a bit left field. And I’ve read recently that, you know, he wants to play test cricket and he turns out for Surrey and he’s just, he’s keeping, he’s flying the flag of proper purist cricket.
I think T20 is great for the game and I think it’s brilliant for kids and I’m not worried about where cricket’s going so long as we have people like Kemar Roach. But I think, you know, in that West Indian team, he reminds me of Viv Richards when they gave him a blank cheque to go and play in the thing and he just said, no, for me, that’s, you know, I love that. So I’m going to go with Kemar Roach and then executive.
That’s a good question. Can he be a former player who’s currently involved in the game? Luke Sutton. Luke Sutton played 500 times for Lancashire, played for Derbyshire in recovery. He’s an agent. He’s a player’s agent and he just gets it. He gets transition. He gets mental health. He knows addiction recovery. He’s just an absolutely phenomenal person and he manages athletes. And I think…
God, having someone like him managing athletes. And then the other one would be Jason Ratcliffe, who was the person who got me into rehab. He’s also an athlete manager. So I think the fact that they’re working at that level with players is absolutely fantastic.
What advice do you have for people looking to get into cricket – as players or working in the industry?
Zee: All right, final question. Given all the incredible experience you’ve had, what advice would you give someone looking to break into the cricket world today, either as a player or on the business side, you know, having seen and learned the things you’ve learned, what are your words of wisdom for those aspiring cricket industry or cricket players?
Simon: I worked with a guy called Mike Hendrick who was a fast bowling, he was the England fast bowler and he died three years ago and he was old school and he introduced me to mother cricket and I scored 70 once and I came off the field and I was, my head was massive and I thought, and he said to me, did you score 70 today? And I said, yeah. And he said, but you couldn’t have scored 70 without there being any stumps.
He said, what about your whites? Who cleaned them?
He said, what about the scorer? How did they get to the game? Who mowed the lawn? The weather was good. What if it had been raining? You wouldn’t have made any runs. What about the people watching? What about cricket, the game, right? And he made me see that mother cricket, the cricket, when I was playing, I thought that being at that level was everything, but cricket is this huge ecosystem and there’s no…
Joss Butler is no better than the nine year old girl who’s playing on a Saturday at the club. You know, we all have our little part to play in this game and it’s not, we don’t own the game. Mother Cricket ultimately owns the game. And what I would say was what Mike Hendricks said to me, he said, do not mess with Mother Cricket. He said, because Mother Cricket will mess with you. And then he said to me, look after Mother Cricket and Mother Cricket will look after you. And Mother Cricket did look after me when I needed the game. The game put me through rehab and…
That’s the game of cricket has changed for me. It’s not a professional… Cricket is not a professional sport. Cricket is a community. It’s a hobby. It’s family, it’s friendships. It’s the local club. That’s cricket for me. And then one little part of it is the IPL and test cricket. Right. It’s just why, cause how many people just don’t even want to be a test cricketer. Right. So I think of cricket as this vast, infinite ecosystem and test cricket and all that is just a part of it.
Zee: Amazing parting words Simon. Thank you so much for joining us. Good luck with all of your ventures and and we’re very on behalf of of cricket the cricket world not that I can speak for mother cricket but we’re we’re all very thankful for what you’re doing for for the community as a whole
Simon: Thanks, Z.
