Cricket grounds are as effective as antidepressants, and equal to cathedrals, as places for recuperative meditation – writes Mark Lawson, as he learns how the game can be a cure to adverse mental health from his own personal experiences in the 2020 Wisden Almanack.
Mark Lawson is a journalist, broadcaster, novelist and playwright. He writes about culture for The Guardian, and is theatre critic of The Tablet. He was Wisden’s book reviewer in 1999.
Where is the best place to go after your mother has died? Many must head for the sanctuaries of church, wood, pub or home. On an awkward empty day before mum’s funeral in September, I found myself drawn to Lord’s, where Middlesex were playing Derbyshire in the final round of the Championship. Supposed to be playing: it rained. Not long after her death, another loved one was admitted as a surgical emergency – the third in just over a year – to Northampton General Hospital. One day, between visiting hours, I went to watch Northamptonshire against Durham – or would have done, had the covers not been on, the umbrellas up.
Neither visit saw a ball bowled, but both saw victories: sitting in the stands raised my spirits and restored my equilibrium. This was no surprise. I recently learned that cricket grounds are as effective as antidepressants, and equal to cathedrals, as places for recuperative meditation.
So although I understand the cricketing objections to last season’s unusually late finish, it proved a boon to me. If the family death or hospitalisation had happened on those dates a few seasons earlier, no pilgrimage to Lord’s or Wantage Road would have been possible. And cricket would not have been able to steady my life as, five years previously, the game had, I believe, saved it.
So it seemed even more fitting to go to Lord’s and, when I was summoned to a second hospital a few days later, to the County Ground. Around half the symptoms listed to my GP five years before had returned, though less severely. That September week, in which I again took the cricket cure, coincided with the retirement of Trescothick. His book, Coming Back To Me, launched a subgenre of cricket literature that makes it impossible now to watch a game without wondering how many of those displaying physical prowess might mentally be struggling.
Yet I also hope the stands contain many others who, through the lulling outdoor rhythms of a game designed always to give the players another go, achieve a healing at Lord’s.
