Former Indian Pacer Praveen Kumar made a shocking revelation in his recent interview that – he wanted to end his life a couple of months ago. Praveen retired from international cricket in 2018 and after being overlooked by the selectors for long, Praveen went into depression and battling with mental health issues followed by loneliness. Currently, Praveen Kumar is undergoing therapy and he seems to be on a good track.
The last match that he played was almost 8 years ago, a T20I vs South Africa in Johannesburg. Recalling his chilling moment in November 2019, Praveen said that he left his home with a revolver in the middle of the night. “I told myself, ‘What’s all this? Let me just end it,” Praveen told. He was driving his car on the highway to Haridwar and just when he thought of killing himself with the revolver, he saw the photo of his children in the car, he said. “I realised I can’t do this to my innocent children. I can’t put them through this hell. I turned back,” he added.
Later, he was diagnosed with depression. Talking about it, Praveen said, “Who understands depression in India? Nobody knows about it and in Meerut, certainly not,” Praveen said. Once an international athlete is now living without cricket in his life. “I have nothing to do, I want to do something but I just can’t. I had been bowling so well. In England, everybody praised me. I was dreaming about a Test career. Suddenly, it was all gone,” he added.
He, later, spoke about his future aspirations that Kumar is looking to take a plunge into cricket coaching, that is on being a bowling coach in UP. He said that cricket is his passion and is finding difficult to leave it. Overall, Praveen played 6 Tests, 68 ODIs and 10 T20Is. He took 112 international wickets.
