In many ways, Marcus Trescothick’s autobiography is like many sporting memoirs – predictable, simple and unremarkable.
It details an impressive enough test career (a average of 44 compares very favourably with English batsmen of his generation), the occasional mouthful of dressing room gossip and the obligatory pictures one-third and two-thirds of the way through words that somebody else helped write.
What makes Trescothick’s turn at the book-signing trestle table a far more interesting prospect is however his unique perspective on the pressures and perils of modern sport. Put simply, international cricket almost broke Marcus Trescothick and ultimately, desperately, when all other options were exhausted, he had to admit that it hurt.
For most people, ‘homesick’ means nothing more than crying yourself to sleep on a Year 6 Easter trip to Walberswick, but Trescothick’s childhood discomfort with all things alien and new never really left him. Incessant, often intense cricket, a fierce media spotlight and the glowering, shifting walls of a 1000 faceless hotels have made the life of a test cricketer more emotionally and physically testing than serving in most European armies.
Trescothick’s time on tour with England – including the junior ranks – had always begun with a sombre and reflective few days until the rigours of the sport provided a distraction and a fresh focus. But with fatigue setting in and a young family at home it only took a handful of pieces of misfortune to send Trescothick spiralling from the imbalance and uncertainty to downright collapse.
Maybe misfortune is a bit glib. Stuck in the beautiful yet hideously unfamiliar sub-continent the last thing you want is a wife with post-natal depression, a father-in-law with a near-fatal head injury and, at a time of genuine social and political instability, an exploding gas canister on the edge of a cricket field in Pakistan.
Trescothick’s lifelong struggle with what was ultimately diagnosed as anxiety and depression had reached its nadir and, wrecked by catastrophic thoughts, panic attacks and nights without sleep he had no choice but to return home – first from India and then, after a false dawn of recovery, Australia.
Returning from the 2006/07 Ashes series all but brought the curtain down on Trescothick’s England career. If he couldn’t tour, then he couldn’t be an England player, simple as that.
Not that Trescothick didn’t try again - more pills, more counselling and more brave but false hopes. As recently as March this year, he found himself melting away in the corner of Dixons at Heathrow’s Terminal 3, faced with the prospect of a long flight and a pre-season tour to Dubai with Somerset.
Trescothick comes across very well. A thoughtful family man, observant, self-effacing and even witty, he is the striking antithesis of those brave new cricketers being endlessly carved by mercenary media moguls. Indeed he is probably one of those players (like Ian Wright in a football shirt) that made us all dream of being a contender long after it was ever realistic.
Trescothick is a player carved in England. Traditional, strong and loyal, he loves nothing more than a Somerset win and a night out with his Somerset team mates before a short trip to his Somerset home to spend some time with his Somerset girls. He just also happens to be as good an opening bastmen as England have produced this century.
History should judge Trescothick well. His record will hold up very well in the years to come. Although those able to tolerate the near constant cricket will dwarf his one-day stats, one does wonder how many more players will make 5000 test runs for England.
His sad demise (and make no mistake, this book is not a tale of weakness and woe, but of genuine physical fallibility) will be a badge he has to wear for the rest of his probably prolific Somerset career. But if we are looking for yet another reason to bemoan the modern sportsman we won’t find it here.
Trescothick is everything a sportsman should be, maybe even everything a man should be, and just as some players have careers shortened by busted ankles or tiring backs, his personal Achilles Heel, so to speak, was between the ears.
And we shouldn’t think less of him for that. Indeed, for a man that grew up in an era of pulling yourself together, he should be commended and admired for his dignity, his humility and for holding his hand up and asking for help.
