Marcus Trescothick - Meeting A Legend

As this blog has been set up primarily for me to post my reflections on the Ashes summer of 2009, it seems only fitting to pay tribute to a luminary of the game and one of the leading players of that magical series in 2005, Marcus Trescothick.

This year I was lucky enough to meet Marcus as he attended the Swindon literature fest on May 12th with his ghost writer, Peter Hayter, to discuss his autobiography, Coming Back To Me.

Whilst the evening was probably more aimed at promoting the book, I had already read it whilst on holiday last September. I normally struggle with ghosted biographies - they somehow seem to lack the passion as if the player had written the book himself - but this was by some distance the read of the holiday, and probably of 2008.

In it, Marcus speaks in depth and with surprising candour about the depressive illness that brought his career to a premature end, how it manifests itself, the symptoms, and the types of personality likely to be affected. Someone close to me has suffered exactly the same type of illness, and the book has made me understand the affliction a great deal better than I did previously. For this reason I wholly recommend that everyone, cricket fan or not, reads Coming Back To Me.

I remember first seeing Trescothick playing for Somerset at Bath vs. Sussex just before his England debut in 2000. At the time, he was already being touted as a future England player, and on the evidence I saw that day, it was easy to see why. Two players really stood out in that match, Trescothick being one, the other Australia's Michael Bevan - at the time the No 1 one-day player in world cricket. I knew at the time I had witnessed something special.

Trescothick duly made his debut for England in limited-overs cricket, with astounding success, but the selectors (short-sighted as usual at the time) were reluctant to chance him in the longer form of the game. His debut in test cricket duly came, of course, and he became Michael Atherton's first regular opening partner since Graham Gooch.

Atherton retired shortly afterwards, at the end of the Ashes summer of 2001, but noted in his own autobiography that he wouldn't be surprised if Trescothick were to pass Graham Gooch's record as England's leading run-scorer in test cricket. Many of us believed that would be the case, but alas it won't happen now.

Not that Trescothick hasn't made an indelible mark on the progress of English cricket in the early 21st century. His role in the Ashes victory of 2005 should not be underestimated; his solid starts at the top of the order gave England the impetus they needed to push for victory and the tone he set on the first day of the second test at Edgbaston could well be regarded as the time the worm turned.

It should also not be forgotten that had it not been for Kevin Pietersen's pyrotechnics on the last day of the series at the Oval, the man from Keynsham would have finished the series as England's leading run-scorer in the series. He truly was the one unsung hero of that glorious series triumph.

His replacement, Alastair Cook, has of course made a fantastic start to his career and I wouldn't be at all surprised if one day he were to top the list of England's leading run scorers in test cricket. He recently said in an interview that it isn't about how you get runs, it's how many you get that counts. Whilst this is no doubt true, it is doubtful he will ever be able to dominate bowling attacks the same way his predecessor did and that fact that there is no place for him in England's one-day team illustrates this perfectly.

Indeed, it is possibly in the shorter form of the game that Trescothick is most missed - evinced by Andrew Strauss' recent request that he play for England as a specialist twenty20 player, which was promptly turned down. As someone said to me, when you've been to hell once you don't want to go back.

Trescothick's England career is over, cut off in its prime. It is, of course, a horrible, crying shame. But one hopes that some good will come of it; in writing Coming Back To Me he has encouraged fellow sufferers to speak openly about their illness and maybe, just maybe, the issue of player burn out will be addressed as a result of such a high-profile casualty.

The talk only reinforced the sadness of the situation, to my mind. It was noticeable to me that Markus became most animated when speaking about his days as an England player - in a lighter moment he became most humorous when talking about the desserts at Lords' - and when asked what he thought about the amount of money paid to cricketers these days he replied simply "I think it's great."

After the reading I waited, as is my wont at such events, for most of the other autograph-hunters to disappear, so I could have a word in private. I thanked Markus for what he has done in helping to break the taboo of mental illnesses, and judging by his reaction I would say he appreciated my comments. I obviously wanted to talk to him about my own novel, Ashes Summer, and gauge his reaction (it would have been fascinating to know what a player in the 2005 series thought about a novel set around it!) but he was clearly tired and probably just wanted to get back to leading his own life, so I shook his hand, wished him well and left it at that.

I sincerely hope he makes a full recovery and enjoys the remaining years of his career with Somerset. No doubt every time he puts a bowling attack to the sword and bludgeons his way to a hundred in double quick time people will sigh and wonder why he isn't playing for England. My advice would be the same as it is for non-aficionados of the game: read Coming Back To Me. You may very well learn something from it.

Copyright © Jonathan Weedon, May 2009