Trescothick Reveals Mental Torment

Cricinfo staff

September 2, 2007

Marcus Trescothick has spoken for the first time about the depressive illness which has blighted his career and which threatens to curtail it prematurely.

In a frank and open interview with his former Somerset team-mate, Iain Fletcher, in today's Scotland on Sunday, Trescothick insists he does not have a mental illness but concedes he will be "seeing the medical people for years".

"No one knew what was going on," he said. "I didn't understand it. People were telling me things and I was like: 'No, there is nothing wrong, I just get a bit worried now and then.' I couldn't express it to people, so I was too scared to say anything about it.

"It's always been reported as a stress-related illness," he continued. "I'm not mentally ill, that's for sure. It all came from the build-up of playing and training, practising and being away from home. It's a combination of different things and the constant grind of being away all the time. I've never necessarily enjoyed going away, I've never really played my best and then combined with a new family it just came to a point where it was like: 'F***!'"

Speaking of his departure from England's tour of Australia, Trescothick revealed he was in a state of confusion, and "not sure how to cope with this at the moment", even when at the crease. But he also said that although the illness appeared to outsiders to have come from nowhere, he has probably suffered from it for years.

"People didn't even know at the end of last summer. Even in the England team, a couple of the lads came along and said: 'Right, what's going on?' I remember in South Africa and Australia (2002-03) waking up in cold sweats thinking about my batting."

Trescothick declared himself unavailable for the winter tours, including the inaugural Twenty20 Championship next week - despite being named in the initial 30-man squad in July.

"I haven't got anything to prove," he said. "I watch it on TV now and think: 'Just give me that chance again,' but I'm not going to do it until in my mind I am 100% and I have to be certain."

Read the full interview at the Scotland on Sunday

© Cricinfo

Boards meet to tackle Kolpak concerns

The ECB has held a meeting with its South African counterparts to discuss a solution to the growing problem of the number of Kolpak players in county cricket.

The get-together follows hot on the heels of last week's memo to all county chairmen advising that the ECB was clamping down on registrations and insisting they ensure that any Kolpak players had the correct work permits.

A report in The Daily Telegraph claims that the two boards discussed two possible ways to tackle the problem.

One was to make it harder for players to represent another national team after they had represented their country at a certain age-group, probably Under-19s. The other was a tightening of permit regulations, so that players would necessarily have played a certain number of first-class matches - possibly as many as 50 - before being allowed to play first-class cricket in England.

Whichever route the boards want to go down, they will need to persuade the ICC of the merits of any action. The ICC executive board needs seven votes out of the ten members to pass the motion.

Although a fortnight ago Haroon Lorgat, South Africa's head of selectors, publicly endorsed South African players using the Kolpak loophole to play in England, it is believed that the board are worried at the player drain as much as the ECB are concerned at the number of players currently in county cricket.

The straw that broke the camel's back was Warwickshire's signing of Vaughn van Jaarsveld, who turned his back on South Africa after not being picked for the national side as quickly as he wanted. That brought home to the South African board the danger of home-grown talent being allowed to drain away.

Richard Bevan, the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, told Cricinfo that the only real solution was to penalise the counties financially for picking Kolpak players. "The only real factor in this day and age is money," he said. "Cash is king."

As for van Jaarsveld, the future is uncertain. He signed for Warwickshire three weeks ago professing that his aim was "to play for England". It now seems he might struggle to play for his county. He is still waiting to be granted a work permit, and that has already been turned down as he has not played in England in the previous two seasons. Warwickshire are looking at exploiting another loophole which might allow him to play 20 hours of county cricket per week.

It may well be that just as the name Kolpak became synonymous for changing the face of county cricket, that of van Jaarsveld might have been the watershed.

Source: © Cricinfo