Pat Brown: Injury hell took its toll on my mental health

The 23-year-old revealed he felt ‘ashamed’ and ‘embarrassed’ of his performances whilst representing Worcestershire in 2020 as he recovered from a stress fracture to his back.  The fast-bowler, who took 31 wickets in Worcestershire’s maiden T20 Blast winning campaign, received an England call-up in 2019. However, a few months after representing his country in New Zealand, he was diagnosed with his injury.

Speaking exclusively to the Sporting Minds UK Podcast, Brown spoke about his battles when he eventually played again for Worcestershire in 2020.

He said: “I was struggling with my form both physically and mentally and I knew that I was going to have to bowl the hardest overs innings.

“I was so down on myself, because of what I had achieved before. With the feeling of playing for England eight months previously it felt like such a low point.  I remember turning up to games thinking I don’t want to play, but also, I don’t want to be injured again either.

“I was desperate for people not to think I was injury prone because of the injuries I had before. When you are worried about what everyone else is thinking, it is not a good place to be. After games when I had inevitably been whacked, I felt really ashamed and embarrassed. I thought I had let everyone down and I massively thought I was letting my teammates down.

“This kind of happens when you are in a bad place mentally, those irrational thoughts start to creep in and I thought my mates must of been thinking I was rubbish. They weren’t, but it felt like a logical thought to have at the time because I was performing so poorly.

“I felt as though my career had peaked at 21 and I was never going to get back to playing for England.

“I wasn’t genuinely considering it, but I had these thoughts in the back of my mind about retiring. I could not carry on doing what I was doing. That three month period was the worst I have had in my career.”

After making his first-team debut for Worcestershire in 2017, Brown has represented a variety of teams on top of his Worcestershire commitments. He signed for the Melbourne Stars in Australia’s Big Bash League in 2019, but was later ruled out through injury. In 2021, he represented the Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred.

Brown also spoke about the difficulties of completing rehabilitation during a global pandemic.

He said: “The feeling of isolation when you are locked down made my recovery a lot worse. I was in a bad place physically, but due to the furlough scheme I could not do any rehab.  When training resumed I knew I wouldn’t be able to do my job. I knew I would be behind everyone else.”

Brown is currently enjoying training with the rest of the Worcestershire squad at Malvern College and is hoping to play a good volume of cricket this summer.