Cricket
Cricket legend Michael Vaughan reveals his horror health battle
- Ex-England skipper, 49, played 82 Tests and 86 ODIs
- Has had a successful commentary career in retirement
- Illness is so severe he had to be hospitalised mid-Test
Michael Vaughan yesterday revealed he has been stricken with a stress-induced inflammatory illness for the past nine months that leaves him incapable of buttoning his shirt or tying his shoelaces.
The former England captain told the Daily Telegraph his symptoms were so severe last Boxing Day that during Australia’s Test match against Pakistan, unable to lift the microphone, he was sent from the commentary box to a Melbourne hospital.
‘If I had been 80 with this, I would have wanted to be shot,’ Vaughan, 49, said, detailing the unbearable levels of pain in his joints accompanying immobility.
‘People always talk about mental illness being the hardest to detect, because it’s not a visible injury, it is just something that happens inside your mind. It’s similar to this illness. Over time, it just builds up.’
After returning to the UK, he was sent for a CT scan that confirmed inflammation in his body was being triggered by stress hormones.
Time-stamping the build-up was straightforward. For three years, Vaughan vehemently denied a single remark his ex-team mate Azeem Rafiq claimed he’d made to a group of Yorkshire players of Asian heritage during a county match at Trent Bridge: ‘There’s too many of you lot, we need to do something about that.’
Last April, a Cricket Discipline Commission concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, he had not said these words at the time and in the specific circumstances alleged.
Vaughan, whose physical well-being has improved through steroid treatment, told the Telegraph: ‘I don’t know if I’m tougher than I thought, or weaker. There are two ways of looking at it. It does prove that I’m human. It’s not about how many caps you have, how many stripes you have, or how famous you are.
‘Your body doesn’t say, “You’re a former England captain, we’re not going to allow this illness to invade you”.
‘There were loads of times when I wouldn’t go out, because I was embarrassed. Even climbing in and out of a car was awful.’