In the modern era of cricket, mental health has emerged as one of the most important factors wherein the ever-evolving cricketing fabric keeps on asking for a chunk of the players’ bodies and minds that leaves them a lot more exhausted. Taking a few illustrious names who actually came to the fore with their mental health, Simone Biles, Ben Stokes and Virat Kohli were the bigger ones.
In July 2020, Maxwell announced an indefinite period of break from Test cricket. In the fourth episode of the documentary “The Test”, the 34-year-old opened up on what exactly unravelled for the hard-hitting all-rounder who is currently nursing a leg fracture.
He said, “I tried to fake everything I did. I went through depression and that was on the back of 18 long months trying to do everything right by anyone else. When I put my hand up in 2019 when I was struggling, if I hadn’t let it go, a couple of weeks later who knows where I would have been.”
Maxi further added, “Every time I had something niggling me or on my mind, I’d get someone into my room – or go and meet someone somewhere and just have a chat. As soon as you get those words out and you’re not holding them in, it can be a relief off your shoulders.”
In fact, if we all choose to look back at Maxwell’s 2020 IPL season, the numbers weren’t particularly brilliant. However, come 2021, things changed and RCB picked him up in the mini-auction. The rest they say is history. His first year for the Challengers worked out wonders while in 2022, he played sustainable cameos that had promise and destruction written up all over them.
