Cricket legend Michael Vaughan reveals the horror health battle that left him so much pain he couldn’t tie his own shoelaces
- Ex-England skipper, 49, played 82 Tests and 86 ODIs
- Has had a successful commentary career since his retirement
- The disease is so serious that he had to be hospitalized halfway through the test
Michael Vaughan revealed yesterday that he has been affected by a stress-induced inflammatory disease for the past nine months, leaving him unable to button his shirt or tie his shoelaces.
The former England captain told the Daily Telegraph that his symptoms were so severe last Boxing Day that he was sent from the commentary box to a hospital in Melbourne during Australia’s test match against Pakistan because he could not lift the microphone.
“If I was 80 with this, I would have wanted to be shot,” Vaughan, 49, said, describing the excruciating pain in his joints that comes with immobility.
Michael Vaughan’s inflammatory disease left him in so much pain that he couldn’t perform simple tasks like buttoning his shirt
The 49-year-old is pictured left with fellow commentator and Australian cricketer Mark Waugh during last year’s Boxing Day Test. Vaughan’s condition prevented him from picking up a microphone during the match and as a result he was sent to hospital
‘People always say that mental illness is the hardest to detect because it’s not a visible injury, it’s just something that happens in your mind. It is similar to this disease. Over time it just builds up.”
After returning to Britain he was sent for a CT scan which revealed that the inflammation in his body was caused by stress hormones.
Timestamping the build was easy. For three years, Vaughan vehemently denied every comment his ex-teammate Azeem Rafiq claimed he made to a group of Yorkshire players of Asian descent during a county match at Trent Bridge: ‘There are too many of you, we have to do something about that .’
Last April, a Cricket Discipline Commission concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, he had not said those words at the time and in the specific circumstances stated.
The ex-England skipper (pictured with daughter Tallula) was so racked with pain that ‘even climbing in and out of a car was terrible’
The stress-related condition came after Vaughan faced three years of scrutiny after allegedly making a racist comment to a group of players of Asian descent in 2009. He was later cleared by the Cricket Discipline Commission.
Vaughan, whose physical well-being has improved through steroid treatment, told the Telegraph: ‘I don’t know if I’m stronger than I thought, or weaker. There are two ways to look at it. It proves that I am human. It’s not about how many hats you wear, 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 let this disease get into you’.
‘There were a lot of times when I didn’t go out because I was ashamed. Even getting in and out of a car was horrible.”