- The 49-year-old former England captain played 82 Tests and 86 ODIs.
- He has had a successful career as a commentator when he was retired.
- The illness 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 which leaves 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 during Australia’s test match against Pakistan, unable to pick up the microphone, he was sent from the commentary box to a Melbourne hospital. .
“If I had been 80 with this, I would have wanted to be shot,” said Vaughan, 49, detailing the excruciating levels of pain in his joints that accompany immobility.
Michael Vaughan’s inflammatory disease left him in so much pain that he couldn’t complete simple tasks like buttoning his shirt.
The 49-year-old is pictured left with fellow commentator and Australian cricket great Mark Waugh in 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 the 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 inside your mind. It is similar to this disease. “Over time, it just adds up.”
After returning to the UK, he was sent for a CT scan which confirmed that stress hormones were triggering inflammation in his body.
Setting the time for preparation was easy. For three years, Vaughan vehemently denied a single comment his former team-mate Azeem Rafiq claimed to have 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 make something about.’
Last April, a Cricket Disciplinary Commission concluded that, considering the probabilities, he had not said these words at the time and in the specific circumstances alleged.
The former England captain (pictured with his daughter Tallula) was so wracked with pain that ‘even getting in and out of a car was horrible’.
The stress-related condition came after Vaughan spent three years under the microscope after allegedly making a racist comment to a group of players of Asian descent in 2009. He was later cleared by the Cricket Disciplinary Commission.
Vaughan, whose physical well-being has improved thanks to steroid treatment, told the Telegraph: ‘I don’t know if I’m tougher than I thought or weaker. There are two ways to look at it. That proves I’m human. It’s not about how many hats you have, 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 take over you.’
“There were many times when I didn’t go out because I was embarrassed. Even getting in and out of a car was horrible.’