ajat
in
blast_n_rip
There Are More Things In Heaven And Earth ...
...
'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'
Seen in me f-page :-
2 entries, one after the other.
With the subject-lines of ---
a - Inzamam proud of team spirit
b (the succeeding one) - nature vs nurture vs THE INCREDIBLE HULK !!
*F O L*
*Raises Both Hands Defensively* Not My Fault, This One, OK ? ! !
*F O L A*
***
Trescothick out of Ashes
Flies home with recurrence of illness
November 14, 2006
Marcus Trescothick: flew out of Sydney early on Tuesday
Marcus Trescothick, England's troubled opening batsman, has flown home from Australia with a recurrence of his "stress-related illness" and will play no part in the Ashes.
In a massive blow to England's prospects, Trescothick left from Sydney International Airport early on Tuesday morning, having also missed the Champions Trophy in India. Following discussions with team management and medical staff, it was agreed he should fly home as soon as possible.
Though he had declared himself "relaxed and ready" for the challenge, he made just 2 and 8 in England's first two warm-up matches at Canberra and Sydney, and questions will now be asked as to why he was allowed to tour in the first place.
"We fully believed Marcus was ready and fit and able to be part of the team in this most important tour," the ECB chairman, David Morgan, told The Sydney Morning Herald. "It is with surprise and great regret that we heard his stress-related illness had re-occurred. This is sad for Marcus but he has a very supportive family."
"It is disappointing to lose a player of such quality," said Duncan Fletcher, England's coach. "Everyone in the England dressing-room hopes he makes a full recovery and is able to resume his international career."
Trescothick's problems began on England's tour of India last winter, when he flew home in tears ahead of the first Test at Nagpur. Speculation was rife as to the cause of his illness, although the ECB shrouded his departure in a blanket of secrecy, and the full extent of his problem has never yet been revealed.
He regained his spot in the team at the start of last season and scored a century in his comeback innings against Sri Lanka at Lord's. However, the rest of the summer against Sri Lanka and Pakistan produced a run of low scores and mid-way through the one-day series with Pakistan it was announced Trescothick would miss the Champions Trophy.
"It's an enormous blow," Ian Botham told Sky Sports. "They obviously thought it's not worth it, and so it's back to the drawing board." Alastair Cook is now the obvious choice to move up the order, just as he did on debut at Nagpur last winter, while Kent's Robert Key - who impressed in a losing cause on the last Ashes tour in 2002-03 - is expected to be drafted in as a replacement.
Trescothick played a key role in England regaining the Ashes last year as he took on the Australian bowlers at the top of the order. His aggressive 90 at Edgbaston set the tone for England's fightback after their defeat at Lord's and his partnerships with Andrew Strauss produced a series of flying starts.
However, his record in Australia during the 2002-03 tour was much more indifferent as he was constantly troubled by the pace attack. He averaged just 26 and his record against Australia is 10 runs lower than his career average. This latest twist to Trescothick's situation shows similarities to Graham Thorpe before the last Ashes tour. Thorpe was named in the squad but pulled out for personal reasons before the team left for Australia.
England in Australia 2006-07
Trescothick tires of the treadmill
November 14, 2006
Marcus Trescothick: touring life has taken its toll
A career in cricket is the ultimate life in a goldfish bowl. For six or seven hours a day, your soul is bared to all and sundry, scrutinised and analysed to an extent that is matched by no other sport. At the very highest level, the mindgames - mental disintegration, as Steve Waugh famously dubbed it - can be all-consuming. A timely sledge here, an untimely dismissal there. And no place to hide when the crowds and the cameras start to get on your case.
Contrary to popular perception, international cricket is not a glamorous lifestyle. The demands of the modern calendar have sucked almost all the spontaneity out of its participants. When it's not a match, it's a training session. When it's not a training session, it's another internal flight. And when it's not an internal flight, it's another bout of navel-gazing in another soulless hotel.
Writing for Cricinfo in his Champions Trophy diaries, the West Indian opener and bon viveur Chris Gayle said, without irony, that the highlights of his days were "chillin' in the hallways" with his equally bored team-mates. No wonder Trescothick admitted in the early weeks of this tour that he had "fallen out of love with the game". But if there was any lingering doubt that Trescothick has a terrible and debilitating problem, today's news has quashed the sceptics once and for all.
The Ashes is everything to this England side - that much is apparent from their indifference towards all other contests - and with a World Cup coming up in four months' time as well, even the most wavering professional would surely be expected to rouse their interest for one big final push. Not Trescothick though. He turns 31 on Christmas Day, and with a young daughter, Ellie Louise, to think about as he sits alone in his hotel-room, he seems to have switched off what little interest he still retained in the international game. Why was he allowed to tour in the first place? The questions are sure to be asked of the ECB, even as they prepare their latest smokescreen.
This case brings to mind the struggles that Graham Thorpe went through in a near-identical scenario four years ago. Like Trescothick, Thorpe's woes began in India, when he flew home ahead of the second Test in a bid to salvage his crumbling marriage, and continued through a dire English summer that reached its nadir in a desperate performance against India at Lord's. After retiring from one-dayers and opting out of the rest of the series, Thorpe initially declared himself available for the Ashes, but then back-tracked before the plane had even lifted off.
Thorpe, like Trescothick, had been one of England's most committed tourists until the moment he snapped, and made ten consecutive tours for the Test and A team before opting out of the South Africa series in 1999-2000. He is now a coach at New South Wales and understands better than anyone the difficulties that cricketers face in the modern game. "The moment you say I am struggling to concentrate because of 'X', the way the media is you are going to throw more pressure on yourself," he said last week. "[Trescothick] has to be able to deal with it."
But he hasn't dealt with it. Who knows what was being murmured from the slip cordon during those two brief innings at Canberra and Sydney? What abuse was being hurled from the stands, along with the racial slurs that have (so far) been shrugged off by Monty Panesar. Whatever he's encountered in the warm-ups, you can bet that worse would have followed once Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath got stuck in at Brisbane. That is not to criticise Australia's attitude to the game, incidentally. Test cricket is a test of mental technique as much as physical, and Trescothick's undoubted successes at the highest level - nearly 6000 runs including 14 hundreds - are proof that his mindset has held together better and longer than most.
But when your mental game becomes so fragile - whether you've lost your nerve against the pacemen or lost your appetite for the battle - there's no amount of net practice or gym work that can get you back to match fitness. England's short-term loss may yet be to their long-term advantage - as perhaps it was when the veteran Thorpe was himself jettisoned in favour of younger, hungrier campaigners at the start of the 2005 Ashes. But if, as is widely being assumed, Trescothick has played his final role on an England tour, what a sad way for a fine career to peter out.
Fletcher had already considered sending opener home
Trescothick's dressing-room breakdown
November 15, 2006
Marcus Trescothick suffered a breakdown during day two of the match against New South Wales and had to be cared for by the team doctor for two hours before asking for a release from the Ashes tour. Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, had already considered sending Trescothick home when the incident occurred on Monday.
"We decided well maybe the best way to deal with it was bring his wife [Hayley] out," Fletcher told AAP. "And then I was a little bit uncomfortable about that, because was that going to help the problem?"
Fletcher was planning to talk to Trescothick, who scored 8 before being bowled by Brett Lee, after the game about whether he should end the tour before the first Test. "I was pretty uncomfortable about it [sending him home]," Fletcher said. "It was taken out of my hands when Marcus came off the field in the afternoon [on Monday] and there was a reoccurrence of the problem he had in India."
Trescothick flew back to England in the lead-up to the first Test against India in February and he also missed the Champions Trophy in the same country last month before declaring his fitness for the Ashes. "He was feeling pretty upset," Fletcher said of the SCG episode. "He wanted to go back." Trescothick boarded a plane for England on Tuesday and a replacement will come from the team of "shadow" players that is due in Perth this week.
"It was unpleasant in the change room with him," Fletcher said. "The doctor just had to sit and console him for about two hours or so. After a while the doctor spoke to him and said to him it's best if he does go home. I only told the chaps last night after the game."
Fletcher hoped the illness would not force the end of Trescothick's 76-Test career. "I can't say at this stage," he said. "It would be foolish of me to turn around and say anyone's Test career is over."
Sometimes, there are more important things than cricket
- Peter Roebuck, November 15, 2006
MARCUS Trescothick is a good-natured young man. He comes from an affable, contributing family that continued to serve teas at his local club near Bristol long after the burly opener had joined Somerset. He was raised to be respectful, committed and loyal and throughout a distinguished career he has shown these qualities.
Yet there has always been an unease about him. Part of him is the superb cricketer, collecting runs, supporting colleagues, neatly taking catches at slip, occasionally taking wickets, even donning the gloves when required and never, ever drawing attention to himself save in the service of his side. Part of him, though, is uncomfortable with the exposure, the travel, the fame, the headlines.
He wanted to play cricket for his club, county and country and yet did not relish either the publicity or the pressures that arose off the field. He preferred to be at home, or among friends in the dressing rooms. He is a man of simple pleasures and simple desires thrust into a headstrong world.
When he arrived at Somerset in the early 1990s, he brought along with him a cricket coffin that contained not bats and gloves but several hundred chocolate bars. The elders at the club discussed how to react and tried to determine the significance of this accoutrement.
It emerged his parents had allowed him to avoid all contact with vegetables and fruit throughout his boyhood. Nevertheless, those candy bars bore a significance that has, perhaps, re-emerged only in the past few months. Here is a man who wants to surround himself with the familiar. A man who yearns for reassurance and finds it both in the scoring of runs and in the company of things he cherishes. Chocolate was a reminder of his youth when cricket was merely a matter of hitting the ball around a park.
Much to the mystification of his seniors, Trescothick took a considerable time to rise through the ranks at Somerset. His footwork was poor and he seemed inclined to edge catches to the slips cordon. He survived because he could bowl, catch and contribute. When the breakthrough came, it was sudden and certain. Somerset seconds chased 620 against Warwickshire at Taunton and the beefy left-hander ended the innings 323 not out. Within 12 months, he was representing his country. In his first match for England, at The Oval, he took to international cricket as a child takes to ice-cream. He looked at home. A country boy, happy even among city slickers.
Mark Lathwell, his contemporary, was different. He hated the crowds. Wanted to be left alone. Trescothick soon played Test cricket against the West Indies and beforehand practised hard at leaving the ball alone. Walsh and Ambrose held no fears for him.
Thereafter his career flourished. But something was lost along the way. A leadership quality that never quite matured, a selflessness that became compromised. Michael Vaughan played alongside Trescothick for England under-19s and he took the extra step into maturity. Eventually Trescothick began to fray at the edges. Every sportsman will recognise the signs. Every sportsman is more vulnerable than he pretends. That is why the Australians had not the slightest intention of teasing the west countryman.
Last winter Trescothick began to feel the seeds of unhappiness. Even beyond sport it is possible to go to sleep and wake up more tired. Strength seeps away, the will is slowly defeated. Once this mental cancer takes hold it is the devil's own work to stop it. Trescothick went home from India, started the next campaign afresh then slowly faded. He missed the Champions Trophy, hoped to arrive fully restored to play his part in this epic series. Within a few days of reaching Australia, he sensed it had been a mistake. Thankfully the error has been corrected before more harm has been done.
Every cricketer, and every Australian, will wish Trescothick well in the next few months. His friends will advise him to put cricket aside, and remind him that life has many more things to offer a capable young man than the scoring of runs and the winning of matches.
12:59 PM
The first victim of this greedy game
Posted 3 hours, 40 minutes ago in Ashes
The reaction to Marcus Trescothick's sudden departure from Australia has been huge, and perhaps the most worrying article comes from Geoff Boycott , a man who played more than a hundred Tests for England. In his Daily Telegraph column he warns that what happened to Trescothiock is the tip of the iceberg.
It is just the beginning - more players will crack up in the future. There is a quick and easy way of stopping this happening but it would involve the game's administrators taking the one step that they dread - cutting back on the amount of international cricket.
Sadly the game is led by people with one thing on their minds - making lots of money. They are no doubt well-meaning people who love the game, but they lack one quality - the experience of playing at the top level.
International cricket brings in millions of pounds and there is no way the game's administrators will stop their money-grabbing ways. It means players are being worked into the ground and the burden of playing non-stop cricket is taking its toll.
David Foot writes in The Guardian "loneliness hits hardest of all, even for cricketers, in crowded places".
And it was in a sweaty dressing room, wedged in with the coffins and enforced bonhomie of ambitious sportsmen - most of them with their own, varying neuroses just below the surface - that Marcus Trescothick told himself it was time to go.
He has never been gregarious or sharply animated in repartee. He likes a joke but leaves the telling to others. On occasions he has given the impression that he enjoyed the game more with his school chums when playing for Keynsham second XI, with his dad Martyn as the gentle counsellor and his mum suggesting the batsmen get on with it as the tea steamed in the big enamel pot ...
He may not be the most cerebral member of the tour party but, as a light sleeper, he has been pondering for hours the expectations facing a key and most experienced opening batsman pledged to retain the Ashes. He is a worrier. The nerves have been gnawing away at him, however much he has suggested otherwise.
Christopher Martin-Jenkins writes in The Times Trescothick's international career is almost certainly over.
Back to The Daily Telegraph where Derek Pringle writes the selection was a gamble waiting to fail".
Peter Roebuck, a former west countryman, in The Age, says that there should be much sympathy for Trescothick's position but that there has always been a certain unease about him.
Eventually Trescothick began to fray at the edges. Every sportsman will recognise the signs. Every sportsman is more vulnerable than he pretends. That is why the Australians had not the slightest intention of teasing the west countryman.
...
'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'
Seen in me f-page :-
2 entries, one after the other.
With the subject-lines of ---
a - Inzamam proud of team spirit
b (the succeeding one) - nature vs nurture vs THE INCREDIBLE HULK !!
*F O L*
*Raises Both Hands Defensively* Not My Fault, This One, OK ? ! !
*F O L A*
***
Trescothick out of Ashes
Flies home with recurrence of illness
November 14, 2006
Marcus Trescothick: flew out of Sydney early on Tuesday
Marcus Trescothick, England's troubled opening batsman, has flown home from Australia with a recurrence of his "stress-related illness" and will play no part in the Ashes.
In a massive blow to England's prospects, Trescothick left from Sydney International Airport early on Tuesday morning, having also missed the Champions Trophy in India. Following discussions with team management and medical staff, it was agreed he should fly home as soon as possible.
Though he had declared himself "relaxed and ready" for the challenge, he made just 2 and 8 in England's first two warm-up matches at Canberra and Sydney, and questions will now be asked as to why he was allowed to tour in the first place.
"We fully believed Marcus was ready and fit and able to be part of the team in this most important tour," the ECB chairman, David Morgan, told The Sydney Morning Herald. "It is with surprise and great regret that we heard his stress-related illness had re-occurred. This is sad for Marcus but he has a very supportive family."
"It is disappointing to lose a player of such quality," said Duncan Fletcher, England's coach. "Everyone in the England dressing-room hopes he makes a full recovery and is able to resume his international career."
Trescothick's problems began on England's tour of India last winter, when he flew home in tears ahead of the first Test at Nagpur. Speculation was rife as to the cause of his illness, although the ECB shrouded his departure in a blanket of secrecy, and the full extent of his problem has never yet been revealed.
He regained his spot in the team at the start of last season and scored a century in his comeback innings against Sri Lanka at Lord's. However, the rest of the summer against Sri Lanka and Pakistan produced a run of low scores and mid-way through the one-day series with Pakistan it was announced Trescothick would miss the Champions Trophy.
"It's an enormous blow," Ian Botham told Sky Sports. "They obviously thought it's not worth it, and so it's back to the drawing board." Alastair Cook is now the obvious choice to move up the order, just as he did on debut at Nagpur last winter, while Kent's Robert Key - who impressed in a losing cause on the last Ashes tour in 2002-03 - is expected to be drafted in as a replacement.
Trescothick played a key role in England regaining the Ashes last year as he took on the Australian bowlers at the top of the order. His aggressive 90 at Edgbaston set the tone for England's fightback after their defeat at Lord's and his partnerships with Andrew Strauss produced a series of flying starts.
However, his record in Australia during the 2002-03 tour was much more indifferent as he was constantly troubled by the pace attack. He averaged just 26 and his record against Australia is 10 runs lower than his career average. This latest twist to Trescothick's situation shows similarities to Graham Thorpe before the last Ashes tour. Thorpe was named in the squad but pulled out for personal reasons before the team left for Australia.
England in Australia 2006-07
Trescothick tires of the treadmill
November 14, 2006
Marcus Trescothick: touring life has taken its toll
A career in cricket is the ultimate life in a goldfish bowl. For six or seven hours a day, your soul is bared to all and sundry, scrutinised and analysed to an extent that is matched by no other sport. At the very highest level, the mindgames - mental disintegration, as Steve Waugh famously dubbed it - can be all-consuming. A timely sledge here, an untimely dismissal there. And no place to hide when the crowds and the cameras start to get on your case.
Contrary to popular perception, international cricket is not a glamorous lifestyle. The demands of the modern calendar have sucked almost all the spontaneity out of its participants. When it's not a match, it's a training session. When it's not a training session, it's another internal flight. And when it's not an internal flight, it's another bout of navel-gazing in another soulless hotel.
Writing for Cricinfo in his Champions Trophy diaries, the West Indian opener and bon viveur Chris Gayle said, without irony, that the highlights of his days were "chillin' in the hallways" with his equally bored team-mates. No wonder Trescothick admitted in the early weeks of this tour that he had "fallen out of love with the game". But if there was any lingering doubt that Trescothick has a terrible and debilitating problem, today's news has quashed the sceptics once and for all.
The Ashes is everything to this England side - that much is apparent from their indifference towards all other contests - and with a World Cup coming up in four months' time as well, even the most wavering professional would surely be expected to rouse their interest for one big final push. Not Trescothick though. He turns 31 on Christmas Day, and with a young daughter, Ellie Louise, to think about as he sits alone in his hotel-room, he seems to have switched off what little interest he still retained in the international game. Why was he allowed to tour in the first place? The questions are sure to be asked of the ECB, even as they prepare their latest smokescreen.
This case brings to mind the struggles that Graham Thorpe went through in a near-identical scenario four years ago. Like Trescothick, Thorpe's woes began in India, when he flew home ahead of the second Test in a bid to salvage his crumbling marriage, and continued through a dire English summer that reached its nadir in a desperate performance against India at Lord's. After retiring from one-dayers and opting out of the rest of the series, Thorpe initially declared himself available for the Ashes, but then back-tracked before the plane had even lifted off.
Thorpe, like Trescothick, had been one of England's most committed tourists until the moment he snapped, and made ten consecutive tours for the Test and A team before opting out of the South Africa series in 1999-2000. He is now a coach at New South Wales and understands better than anyone the difficulties that cricketers face in the modern game. "The moment you say I am struggling to concentrate because of 'X', the way the media is you are going to throw more pressure on yourself," he said last week. "[Trescothick] has to be able to deal with it."
But he hasn't dealt with it. Who knows what was being murmured from the slip cordon during those two brief innings at Canberra and Sydney? What abuse was being hurled from the stands, along with the racial slurs that have (so far) been shrugged off by Monty Panesar. Whatever he's encountered in the warm-ups, you can bet that worse would have followed once Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath got stuck in at Brisbane. That is not to criticise Australia's attitude to the game, incidentally. Test cricket is a test of mental technique as much as physical, and Trescothick's undoubted successes at the highest level - nearly 6000 runs including 14 hundreds - are proof that his mindset has held together better and longer than most.
But when your mental game becomes so fragile - whether you've lost your nerve against the pacemen or lost your appetite for the battle - there's no amount of net practice or gym work that can get you back to match fitness. England's short-term loss may yet be to their long-term advantage - as perhaps it was when the veteran Thorpe was himself jettisoned in favour of younger, hungrier campaigners at the start of the 2005 Ashes. But if, as is widely being assumed, Trescothick has played his final role on an England tour, what a sad way for a fine career to peter out.
Fletcher had already considered sending opener home
Trescothick's dressing-room breakdown
November 15, 2006
Marcus Trescothick suffered a breakdown during day two of the match against New South Wales and had to be cared for by the team doctor for two hours before asking for a release from the Ashes tour. Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, had already considered sending Trescothick home when the incident occurred on Monday.
"We decided well maybe the best way to deal with it was bring his wife [Hayley] out," Fletcher told AAP. "And then I was a little bit uncomfortable about that, because was that going to help the problem?"
Fletcher was planning to talk to Trescothick, who scored 8 before being bowled by Brett Lee, after the game about whether he should end the tour before the first Test. "I was pretty uncomfortable about it [sending him home]," Fletcher said. "It was taken out of my hands when Marcus came off the field in the afternoon [on Monday] and there was a reoccurrence of the problem he had in India."
Trescothick flew back to England in the lead-up to the first Test against India in February and he also missed the Champions Trophy in the same country last month before declaring his fitness for the Ashes. "He was feeling pretty upset," Fletcher said of the SCG episode. "He wanted to go back." Trescothick boarded a plane for England on Tuesday and a replacement will come from the team of "shadow" players that is due in Perth this week.
"It was unpleasant in the change room with him," Fletcher said. "The doctor just had to sit and console him for about two hours or so. After a while the doctor spoke to him and said to him it's best if he does go home. I only told the chaps last night after the game."
Fletcher hoped the illness would not force the end of Trescothick's 76-Test career. "I can't say at this stage," he said. "It would be foolish of me to turn around and say anyone's Test career is over."
Sometimes, there are more important things than cricket
- Peter Roebuck, November 15, 2006
MARCUS Trescothick is a good-natured young man. He comes from an affable, contributing family that continued to serve teas at his local club near Bristol long after the burly opener had joined Somerset. He was raised to be respectful, committed and loyal and throughout a distinguished career he has shown these qualities.
Yet there has always been an unease about him. Part of him is the superb cricketer, collecting runs, supporting colleagues, neatly taking catches at slip, occasionally taking wickets, even donning the gloves when required and never, ever drawing attention to himself save in the service of his side. Part of him, though, is uncomfortable with the exposure, the travel, the fame, the headlines.
He wanted to play cricket for his club, county and country and yet did not relish either the publicity or the pressures that arose off the field. He preferred to be at home, or among friends in the dressing rooms. He is a man of simple pleasures and simple desires thrust into a headstrong world.
When he arrived at Somerset in the early 1990s, he brought along with him a cricket coffin that contained not bats and gloves but several hundred chocolate bars. The elders at the club discussed how to react and tried to determine the significance of this accoutrement.
It emerged his parents had allowed him to avoid all contact with vegetables and fruit throughout his boyhood. Nevertheless, those candy bars bore a significance that has, perhaps, re-emerged only in the past few months. Here is a man who wants to surround himself with the familiar. A man who yearns for reassurance and finds it both in the scoring of runs and in the company of things he cherishes. Chocolate was a reminder of his youth when cricket was merely a matter of hitting the ball around a park.
Much to the mystification of his seniors, Trescothick took a considerable time to rise through the ranks at Somerset. His footwork was poor and he seemed inclined to edge catches to the slips cordon. He survived because he could bowl, catch and contribute. When the breakthrough came, it was sudden and certain. Somerset seconds chased 620 against Warwickshire at Taunton and the beefy left-hander ended the innings 323 not out. Within 12 months, he was representing his country. In his first match for England, at The Oval, he took to international cricket as a child takes to ice-cream. He looked at home. A country boy, happy even among city slickers.
Mark Lathwell, his contemporary, was different. He hated the crowds. Wanted to be left alone. Trescothick soon played Test cricket against the West Indies and beforehand practised hard at leaving the ball alone. Walsh and Ambrose held no fears for him.
Thereafter his career flourished. But something was lost along the way. A leadership quality that never quite matured, a selflessness that became compromised. Michael Vaughan played alongside Trescothick for England under-19s and he took the extra step into maturity. Eventually Trescothick began to fray at the edges. Every sportsman will recognise the signs. Every sportsman is more vulnerable than he pretends. That is why the Australians had not the slightest intention of teasing the west countryman.
Last winter Trescothick began to feel the seeds of unhappiness. Even beyond sport it is possible to go to sleep and wake up more tired. Strength seeps away, the will is slowly defeated. Once this mental cancer takes hold it is the devil's own work to stop it. Trescothick went home from India, started the next campaign afresh then slowly faded. He missed the Champions Trophy, hoped to arrive fully restored to play his part in this epic series. Within a few days of reaching Australia, he sensed it had been a mistake. Thankfully the error has been corrected before more harm has been done.
Every cricketer, and every Australian, will wish Trescothick well in the next few months. His friends will advise him to put cricket aside, and remind him that life has many more things to offer a capable young man than the scoring of runs and the winning of matches.
12:59 PM
The first victim of this greedy game
Posted 3 hours, 40 minutes ago in Ashes
The reaction to Marcus Trescothick's sudden departure from Australia has been huge, and perhaps the most worrying article comes from Geoff Boycott , a man who played more than a hundred Tests for England. In his Daily Telegraph column he warns that what happened to Trescothiock is the tip of the iceberg.
It is just the beginning - more players will crack up in the future. There is a quick and easy way of stopping this happening but it would involve the game's administrators taking the one step that they dread - cutting back on the amount of international cricket.
Sadly the game is led by people with one thing on their minds - making lots of money. They are no doubt well-meaning people who love the game, but they lack one quality - the experience of playing at the top level.
International cricket brings in millions of pounds and there is no way the game's administrators will stop their money-grabbing ways. It means players are being worked into the ground and the burden of playing non-stop cricket is taking its toll.
David Foot writes in The Guardian "loneliness hits hardest of all, even for cricketers, in crowded places".
And it was in a sweaty dressing room, wedged in with the coffins and enforced bonhomie of ambitious sportsmen - most of them with their own, varying neuroses just below the surface - that Marcus Trescothick told himself it was time to go.
He has never been gregarious or sharply animated in repartee. He likes a joke but leaves the telling to others. On occasions he has given the impression that he enjoyed the game more with his school chums when playing for Keynsham second XI, with his dad Martyn as the gentle counsellor and his mum suggesting the batsmen get on with it as the tea steamed in the big enamel pot ...
He may not be the most cerebral member of the tour party but, as a light sleeper, he has been pondering for hours the expectations facing a key and most experienced opening batsman pledged to retain the Ashes. He is a worrier. The nerves have been gnawing away at him, however much he has suggested otherwise.
Christopher Martin-Jenkins writes in The Times Trescothick's international career is almost certainly over.
Back to The Daily Telegraph where Derek Pringle writes the selection was a gamble waiting to fail".
Peter Roebuck, a former west countryman, in The Age, says that there should be much sympathy for Trescothick's position but that there has always been a certain unease about him.
Eventually Trescothick began to fray at the edges. Every sportsman will recognise the signs. Every sportsman is more vulnerable than he pretends. That is why the Australians had not the slightest intention of teasing the west countryman.
...