Until last night I was unaware of an alarming statistic: the number of cricketers who take their own lives is 75% higher than the rest of the population.
In a Radio 5 discussion that followed a feature on the former England Test player Chris Lewis, who was recently convicted of smuggling cocaine, it emerged that, in the UK, the suicide rate among male cricketers stands at 1.77%; the statistic for men generally in the UK is 1.07%.
It would be easy to dismiss the figure as a statistical quirk but the toll is even higher overseas: in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia the figures are 4.12%, 3.92% and 2.75% respectively, according to David Frith's book, Silence of the Heart.
So why cricketers? The discussion put some of the blame on the game itself but also the difficulty in the transition at retirement.
Certainly, due to the nature of county cricket, a lot of time is spent away from the family home and the team unit replaces that family. For those involved in Test cricket, the surrogate family becomes stronger as many months each year are spent in different parts of the world, while the intensity of the games themselves stretches mental capacity.
Drinking and gambling with team-mates can result and divorce rates are high. The spiral starts to become apparent - but only to those on the outside.
On retiring from the game, those more prone to mental health problems fall into a void from which it is difficult to escape.
Is it as simple as that? I don't know, but one cricketer who has battled against depression is former England batsman Marcus Trescothick, who has featured in a previous Outside Left.
I do hope the Professional Cricketers Association, whose role is partly pastoral, takes advice from him.
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