The female athlete’s mind: mental health experiences and support in women’s cricket academies

Aligned with emerging adulthood, sporting academies are critical stages for mental health support. While research has started to understand mental health experiences in women’s cricket, presently no research has focused on female’s mental health within cricket academies. Our present study addressed this through 10 interviews with UK female academy cricketers (aged 17–20) where we explored their mental health experiences and provided recommendations for cricket stakeholders. Mental health challenges of being a female in emerging adulthood within a cricket academy included: the menstrual cycle, navigating dynamics with male coaches, balancing external commitments alongside strong cricket identities, and experiencing high-performance pressures and expectations. To proactively support female cricketers’ mental health during their time in sporting academies, player and staff education is needed on female-specific topics (e.g. the bio-psycho-performance impacts of contraception) and academies should adopt a holistic approach to player development and care (e.g. access to female staff, and/or lifestyle advisor).