Melbourne: Veteran Australian spinner Brad Hogg has made a sensational revelation saying he contemplated suicide in the wake of his retirement from international cricket and the subsequent breakdown of his first marriage.
In his new autobiography 'The Wrong 'Un', Hogg details about his battle with depression and how he switched to heavy drinking.
"I parked my car at Port Beach and went for a walk. I'd stare at the sea and think, I could swim out to that groyne, and if I make it back fine. If I don't make it back . well, hard luck," news.com.au quotes him writing in his book.
"I was prepared to let fate decide. I was in a really dark place. I did that Fremantle drive four times. And each time I thought about doing something really drastic," he adds.
In one of the chapters titles 'The Collapse', the chinaman spinner confirms that marital problems were the main reason for his shock retirement from cricket at the end of the 2007-08 summer.
The leg-spinner had made a comeback into the Australian Test side that summer following the retirement of Shane Warne.
The 45-year-old jots down that he started crying uncontrollably while fielding during his seventh and final Test against India in January, 2008 at the Adelaide Oval.
The left-arm spinner says that he stopped watching cricket for almost an year, while recalling a drunken episode at an ODI at the WACA in Perth, which ended in him sleeping in bushes as he walked home from the Raffles Hotel.
"My ego had taken a hit and my purpose in life had diminished. I felt I had nowhere to turn. This led to a period of deep depression. It was a cumulative effect of a broken marriage, a mundane work life and my festering anger that I had walked away from cricket," he writes.
Hogg played just seven Test matches during which he scalped 17 wickets and took 157 wickets in 124 ODIs he played in his entire career.
