HarperSport 18.99MARCUS Trescothick was a child prodigy, scoring 183 not out for Avon Schools under-11s, making his first century in senior cricket aged 14, and his debut for Somerset two years later.
Facing the South African
pace bowler Rudi Bryson at that tender age, Trescothick's first thought was "dear Jesus Christ, don't let him kill me," before enjoying "the most exhilarating experience of my cricketing life."
Trescothick realised that he wasn't easily intimidated, "though some might have ascribed that characteristic to the old adage about no sense, no feeling."
Without being unkind, this is the surprising thing about Trescothick's story. For although it opens with an account of his anxiety attack in March this year, when he found himself "hunched up, sobbing, distraught, slumped in a corner of Dixon's" at Heathrow, it proceeds fairly straightforwardly, with few clues as to the torment that he would later suffer.
The portrait Trescothick paints of himself as a boy and man is fairly one-dimensional, it has to be said. "Paradise on earth on a rainy day was to pore over the pages of the latest (cricket equipment] catalogues." Nothing interests him at school. Life, from a very young age, revolves around cricket.
He obsesses over bats, Iain Fletcher reckoning his behaviour was "something between dedicated and obsessive compulsive."
Some could suggest that these are clues; others would say this is fairly typical behaviour for a top sportsman.
There are other quirks. As a 16-year-old with Somerset, staying in a hotel in Eastbourne, he is mocked by his team-mates for making his own bed. His diet is odd – for years it comprised almost exclusively of sausages, hence the nickname 'Bangers.' He is so proud to eat his first ever beef burger that he phones his mum to tell her. He is 29.
There is nothing to suggest that Trescothick will suffer as he later does; the horror of his depressive illness creeps up on the reader. When it "flaps its black wings" it is chilling indeed; and the episodes when he is in some far-off place, and struggling to hold himself together, while somehow performing on the cricket pitch, make for extremely uncomfortable reading.
What Trescothick's story illustrates, overwhelmingly, is that such an illness can strike anyone. In terms of how others responded, some emerge with credit – Duncan Fletcher in particular – others with less. But this isn't an exposé of English cricket – it is the simply told, plainly written, story of Trescothick coming to terms with his condition. It has taken courage to tell, and you hope that the telling will prove therapeutic.
The full article contains 453 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
