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Clinical guidance suggests recovery from emotional trauma can take weeks or months. In some cases, the lingering pain can last for years. Elite cricketers, though, are expected to compress that timeline into days.

Take Mitchell Santner. The New Zealand captain oversaw his team’s crushing 96-run loss by India in the T20 World Cup final on 8 March. It was the Black Caps’ fourth defeat in an ICC final since 2019 and, having swatted aside South Africa in the semi-final, would have stung. Well, Santner had to do his contemplating on the flight back home as seven days later he was suited and booted for a T20 international against the Proteas at Mount Maunganui.

Not that Santner was alone. Misery loves company and sharing the field with him were his Kiwi teammates Jimmy Neesham, Cole McConchie and Kyle Jamieson, who were part of the World Cup squad, as well as the South Africans Keshav Maharaj, George Linde and Jason Smith, who landed in New Zealand on 12 March without a trip home.

Be honest, dear Spin readers. How many of you were even aware that there was a T20 series going on between South Africa and New Zealand? Did Connor Esterhuizen’s 57 off 36 balls in Wellington register a blip on your radar? What about the three for 14 delivered by Ben Sears in Hamilton? Clock that one?

It’s not the players’ fault that these moments pass unnoticed. Bilateral international cricket, particularly in its shortest format, has become both constant and strangely weightless, squeezed into the margins between tournaments that are supposed to define careers. The modern calendar resembles a game of Tetris that has gone awry.

“It’s relentless,” says Maurice Duffy, one of the world’s leading mental skills coaches who worked closely with Steve Smith either side of the 2018 ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. With Duffy’s help, Smith was able to process the shame he felt having had the Australian captaincy stripped from him to return for the 2019 Ashes where he scored 774 runs at an average of 110.57.

“It’s all about reset,” Duffy continues. “And if you don’t give [the players] time to reset, that’s when things become difficult. Burnout isn’t about playing too much. It’s about playing without meaning. But there’s also a danger of being on all the time. So that balance is crucial.”

For Andy Hooten, the head of school health, sport and rehabilitation at the University of Derby, the issue is not just the volume of cricket, but what it demands emotionally.

“The ability to process failure, challenge and disappointment, and then still be expected to perform days or weeks after a major setback, that is quite a challenging thing to do,” Hooten says.

Part of the problem lies in how much is invested in those moments in the first place. “If everything is pegged on long-term outcome goals – like a World Cup or an Ashes series – then the effects of disappointment or failure can be pretty detrimental.”

If that sounds abstract, the reality is anything but. Rohit Sharma has spoken candidly about the aftermath of India’s capitulation in their own World Cup in 2023. “For a few days I didn’t want to leave my room,” he said after Australia’s shock six-wicket win in front of 100,000 stunned Indian fans. “I didn’t want to do anything.” A month later, however, he was involved in a Test series in South Africa where he registered scores of 5, 0, 39 and 16 not out.

Stillness is a luxury that most cricketers cannot enjoy. And on Saturday, the bewildering spectacle that is the Indian Premier League gets under way three weeks after the end of the T20 World Cup. That may seem like a lightning-fast turnaround, but it is generous compared to 2015 when the gap between the end of the World Cup and the start of the IPL was just 10 days.

There is a silver lining. Momentum can help process trauma, sometimes providing useful distraction. But, as Duffy points out, that only works if there is still meaning attached to what comes next. “When purpose drops, effort feels heavy and empty,” he says. “I’ve worked with athletes and almost always the aim is to find the ‘why’. Why are they doing something? I can ask a hundred questions and we always come back to that one.”

For Smith, it was about proving he belonged, not only at the top table of the sport, but also within the wider consciousness of an Australian public that had struggled to fully accept him. That motivation, in part, propelled him to one of the greatest Ashes performances in the contest’s history.

But, as Duffy points out, Smith is an outlier, both in temperament and talent. Not every player can flick the switch or turn off the noise after a harrowing defeat. And amid the constant grind of the modern calendar, be that on the franchise circuit or the County Championship slog, the game asks a lot of those who step out in the middle for our entertainment.

And we, the audience, are asked to keep up. To care about bilateral competitions that barely warrant a glance. To invest energy into a franchise team owned by a consortium of billionaires. In a game that never pauses, where everything matters briefly and little endures, even the most devoted fan must wonder what, exactly, they are being asked to hold on to. On the bright side, there’s very little time to dwell on any of that.

Takebacks in cricket

Last week Morocco were declared winners of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations after a sensational decision to overturn the result following Senegal’s controversial walk-off in the final. It’s the right call made at the wrong time. After the Senegalese players walked off the field in protest at the awarding of a late penalty – which was subsequently missed by Morocco – that should have been that. Instead they went on to win the match in extra time, leaving administrators to tidy up their mess.

In that spirit, what would you do if you had the power of Afcon officials – or Marty McFly – and could rewrite history as you liked? What erroneous moment in the sport’s past would be the first to feel your swinging axe of justice?

I’ll go first. I’d go back to 1992 and allow South Africa a second go at chasing down 252 against England in a rain-affected World Cup semi-final in Sydney. This was before the invention of DLS revised targets and once play resumed, the Proteas were left needing an impossible 22 off one ball. Who knows, if they’d pulled that off perhaps this whole chokers-tag business would never have materialised.

There are others. I’m sure Black Caps fans would like a second look at the six runs that were erroneously awarded to Ben Stokes in the dramatic 2019 World Cup final at Lord’s. With nine needed from three deliveries, Stokes and Adil Rashid pushed for a second run when a throw from the boundary deflected off Stokes’s outstretched bat and away to the boundary for four overthrows and six runs in total. We now know that should have been five runs, possibly leaving England one short of squaring the game and taking it to a Super Over.

England maybe deserve a bit of retribution themselves. History has judged Nasser Hussain kindly for leading a boycott against Zimbabwe at the 2003 World Cup. That ultimately cost England a place in the latter stages of the tournament but such a rare act of bravery, and overt solidarity with those affected by Robert Mugabe’s brutal rule, deserved more than cold, bureaucratic punishment.

Quote of the week

I think they’re very, very lucky. There’s not many management groups that deliver something so poor away from home in an Ashes series and get the chance to carry on” – former England captain, Michael Vaughan, on the ECB’s decision to keep faith in Rob Key and Brendon McCullum.

Memory lane

24 March 2018, Cape Town. It was one of cricket’s “where were you” moments. What was already a volatile series between South Africa and Australia reached unprecedented levels when young batter Cameron Bancroft was caught with his hands down his trousers, trying to hide a piece of sandpaper he’d used to scuff up the ball. The fallout led to bans for Bancroft, vice-captain David Warner, and captain Steve Smith. Darren Lehman resigned with tears in his eyes as “sandpapergate” became a global scandal, prompting soul-searching within Australian cricket.

Still want more?

Richard Gould believes keeping Rob Key and Brendon McCullum in charge of the England men’s team is the right call, even it isn’t popular.

Almost every Ashes call went wrong, writes Ali Martin – it will take time for McCullum and Key to win back the public.

“I wanted the rollercoaster of being emotionally invested”: Ian Bell talks to Ali Martin about coaching, England and the 2005 Ashes WhatsApp.

The crammed Test cricket schedule risks leaving Australian summers unrecognisable, writes Geoff Lemon.

And Ben Duckett has pulled out of his lucrative IPL deal to focus on saving his Test spot.

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… by writing to daniel.gallan.casual@theguardian.com.

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