This is not your regular cricket chat. But for cricket’s sake, this needs to be regularised.

Amelia Kerr is still that girl who smashed a double-century and took a fifer in the same game when she was barely 17. She’s still that girl who you can bet your house on to turn a game around from any situation, with bat and ball. She is still that onfield champion. But off it, she’s championing a bigger cause.

“I would have been a mental health educator had I not been a cricketer,” she says in an exclusive interview with mumbaiindians.com.

“For me, mental health is something I am extremely passionate about, having had family, friends and myself struggle with mental illness. Sometimes you forget they are human beings and you have got to put the person first. We are all humans at the end of the day.”

In May 2021, Amelia was nursing a broken ring finger. By July 2021, although her finger was fine, her mental health, a pressing issue for a few years at that point, finally caught up. It couldn’t be brushed under the carpet any longer. She took a seven-month long break from the game, turned to her family, and sought medical help. It needed to be done.

“My family and Sophie Devine have been amazing throughout my career. I wouldn’t be where I am without my family in cricket and in life. They are the most incredible people, all my role models in life. The support they’ve shown me in my career and in my life, I’d never be able to repay them.”

It is this brushing under the carpet that Amelia is out to stop. This is her normal, and through her chats, through her social media presence, through outoftherough.nz, she is bringing about a massive change, where talking about mental health, depression in sport, and mental well-being openly is the new normal.

“For me, normalising the conversation is huge and being able to do things with charity is so important. We all feel things, we all have mental health. My message is always just to ‘be kind’, for you never know what someone else is going through,” she stresses.  

Ben Stokes. Sophie Devine. Sarah Taylor. Glenn Maxwell. Marcus Trescothick. Jonathan Trott. A sportsperson’s legacy is rarely about the runs they score and the wickets they take. It’s about the battles you win, the kids you inspire, the taboos you normalise, the lives you change. These players, greats in their eras, will remain greats across eras for being brave enough to admit their challenges with mental health, walk away from the game, and speak about it openly, before coming back stronger.

And thus, today, Amelia Kerr, is no longer just that girl you can bet your house on to turn a game around from any situation. She is that girl who has worked passionately to make lives simpler for girls picking up the sport.