The story of Marcus (the illness that nearly swallowed him)

There were attributes that made Marcus Trescothick inimitable when you watched him bat. His lean 6ft 3 frame made him an imposing structure at the crease, more so because he maintained a dead straight posture. Then, just as the bowler delivered, his posterior would protrude – taken out of his own coaching manual. Observe closely, and spot the cocky, Jack Nicholson-like expression on his face, as if international cricket was child’s play. Then, with minimal footwork, he’d effortlessly send the ball scurrying away to the boundary, blessed with the gift of timing.

For Marcus, it was his confidence at the crease which set him apart from the rest. The cocky expression led us to believe that he could continue batting in his sleep. But looks can be deceptive, and in Marcus’ case, terribly so. It masked an illness which had silently plagued him, caused him to suffer emotionally, attacking him in places where eyes and television cameras are not allowed. It all came to a head in 2006 during the India tour, when he quit the tour midway on the pretense of picking up a ‘mysterious virus’. Confusion, speculation and rumours spread wide about the actual reason for his sudden departure. Months later, the truth came out that Marcus was suffering from serious depression, caused by the pain of separation from his young family, associated with long cricket tours.

Marcus chronicles his illness in graphic detail in his autobiography, Coming back to me, which is probably the most compelling book written by a modern cricketer. Compelling, because it reveals a different, and rather disturbing side to the player we never thought existed. The negative effects of the demands of a senior international player only add to the intrigue. Nearly half the book is focused on the illness, it’s origins and the disturbing behind the scenes events which culminated in him quitting international cricket in tears at the start of the Ashes tour in 2006. It’s stories of pain and human suffering, which (unfortunately) sell, just as much as juicy details of extra-marital affairs and infidelity which several sportsmen have been guilty of in the past.

It must have taken Marcus a lot of guts to shed his humility and come clean about his suffering. Marcus, alongwith Michael Vaughan, transformed England’s batting post 2000. His presence at the top made England believe they could compete against anyone, anywhere. And it all came to an abrupt end. When he departed, the country realised just how much they had missed him. There were pleas for a comeback, but Marcus had made up his mind – he wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Homesickness had dogged Marcus right from his junior cricket days, but back then he’d grit his teeth and eventually get over it. It was only a sign of things to come. The serious effects started to appear when his wife Hayley suffered from post-natal depression herself. The thought of her suffering, with a baby in tow, made Marcus jittery at the start of the South African tour in 2004.

But the start of the end of his career happened a year later in Pakistan. When he visited the earthquake victims in Rawalpindi, the sight of young children writhing in pain without a clue if their parents were dead or alive made him think of his own little girl and he subsequently burst out crying. During the first Test in Multan, which was progressing very well under his captaincy and batting form, he received a disturbing phone call from his wife.

Her dad had suffered a nasty accident at home when he fell off a ladder and was knocked out unconscious, lying in a pool of blood. With CCTV cameras around the house, Marcus could watch the footage in his laptop. That night, in his hotel room, he watched the images of his father in-law’s fall over and over again for nearly 45 minutes in agony. It was unbearable. His wife pleaded with him to return and it sent him into turmoil. With Vaughan injured, Marcus had taken over the captaincy and was the most vital cog in the team. Should he give it all up or stay on for the sake of his country?

Rather surprisingly, by his own admittance, he turned her down. He writes: “Was my response motivated by selfishness, by a sense of duty that now seems comically warped or just by not wanting to confront what I might find when I got home?” It didn’t go down well with her and Marcus, gripped with self doubt, reconsidered his decision. But following a conversation with Vaughan the following day, he changed his mind again. His decision to stay on in Pakistan for the whole tour is something - he admits - he regrets till this day. When he arrived at Heathrow, his daughter barely recognized him. That incident was the catalyst for the implosion in India a few months later, in a Baroda hotel.

The sight of abject poverty and homelessness in the streets of Baroda triggered off another swirl of negative emotions, bringing back memories of the earthquake. In Mumbai, before the Baroda trip, he woke up one night in a cold sweat and collapsed face down on the bathroom floor. The symptoms were far worse in Baroda, where he broke down one night while talking to the team doctor. Nothing worked, from tranquilisers to acupuncture. Marcus describes this nightmarish experience in heart-wrenching detail in his book and I’d rather not get into it here. He dragged himself to the ground the next morning, before breaking down again, in front of his team-mates. There were no two ways about it. He was headed home.

Not that the symptoms vanished as soon as he returned. It was still hell. He writes: “My brain was in frantic, panic-stricken overdrive; sliced into a 1000 pieces by sharp thoughts shooting this way and that.” Oddly enough, he wasn’t even aware he was suffering from depression till a doctor in England diagnosed it. In fact he was in denial about it. He later realized that the illness wasn’t just for weak people.

It took a few months for him to pick up a bat again and resume his England career. But the curiosity over his condition heightened in the media and that was to be his biggest challenge in the summer of 2006. He had agreed to an interview to Sky TV and even discussed how best to tackle the sensitive questions. But at the critical moment in the interview, he masked the truth and revealed nothing about the horrific events in Baroda. All reports of the “mysterious bug” seemed like pure hogwash and it was a source of major embarrassment for Marcus. It prompted false rumours about his marriage. In the chapter “The Lie”, Marcus aptly describes the interview as a “masterpiece of misinformation.”

His counseling sessions continued till he made himself available for the Ashes in Australia, convincing everyone that he was fine, comforted by the thought of his wife and daughter joining him later on tour. But the shivers and anxiety attacks started again. He threw in the towel midway through a practice match, burst out crying yet again in the dressing room and told his wife to cancel her plans. He was coming home, for good. At that point, he had all but officially called time on his England career.

However, it didn’t stop him from scoring loads of runs for Somerset and he’s currently in the form of his life. He made another attempt to leave England shores for a pre-season tour of the UAE with Somerset in 2008 but got cold feet again and sobbed at Heathrow, in public. He summoned the courage to fly to India for the Champions League but left after a couple of games. It was simple. There was only one place, and that was home.

In the closing chapters, he elaborates on the dangers the illness can cause when ignored and also states some common misconceptions about it. When extracts of the book came out, he received several mails of sympathy from fellow sufferers. It was no surprise he won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2008, because the jury knew Marcus “fearlessly tackled one of the great taboos of elite sport.”

Six years was too short a shelf life for who I consider as the best English batsman of the decade. Should Kevin Pietersen’s form drop dramatically at some point in his career, Marcus Trescothick could be one of the few players (not sure of the number) in modern English cricket history never to have been dropped on form. It’s a reputation he will look back upon with a sense of pride.