Marcus Trescothick, who declared last month that he did not want to be chosen by England for the deciding npower Ashes Test match owing to his stress-related illness, has committed himself to taking part in the Champions League Twenty20 tournament in India next month.
It will be the first time Trescothick has played cricket overseas since he returned home early from Australia on the 2006-07 tour and subsequently retired from the international game.
Trescothick will be named today in Somerset’s 15-man party for the lucrative tournament, which starts on October 8 and lasts for 16 days. He will be vice-captain of the side and is likely, after Justin Langer announced on Test Match Special yesterday that he would in all probability not be returning to Taunton next year, to be his club’s next captain.
Brian Rose, the Somerset director of cricket, is discussing with Trescothick a plan to have him combine the trip with a family holiday so as to relieve any possible stress upon returning to India, where he broke down on England’s tour three years ago.
One idea is that he could be based with his family in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and commute to the venues where the tournament will be staged. His exact location will not be revealed owing to security concerns.
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Trescothick’s last attempt at boarding a flight to play cricket was also to the UAE. He describes vividly in his autobiography being “hunched up, sobbing, distraught” at Heathrow, unable to fly to Dubai with his Somerset colleagues in March last year. “I was in no physical, mental or earthly state to take it,” he wrote. “Until the eve of our departure, I never seriously thought I would have a problem.”
Somerset have put no pressure on their star batsman, the leading run-scorer in the country this season, to take part in the Champions League. They are aware that the best method of ensuring he plays in India is for him to treat the trip as a holiday and are discussing with Trescothick paying for his family’s accommodation.
Trescothick has said that saying goodbye to his family upon leaving to catch the flight to Dubai was what triggered another bout of his stress condition. He admits he will never be entirely free from it. “I kissed them all goodbye and as the car pulled away, I was suddenly, acutely and terrifyingly aware of the shiver,” he wrote in Coming Back To Me. Having his wife, Hayley, and two daughters with him will alleviate one concern. And he is hardly likely to be bothered by facing Deccan Chargers or Trinidad & Tobago.
Somerset, of course, are keen to have Trescothick with them on the sub-continent for financial reasons — there is £3.6 million prize money at stake — but firmly believe that he should be treated differently from cricketers who have opted out of tours in the past because he has sound medical reasons. Last month Richard Gould, the chief executive of Somerset, told The Times that Trescothick would return to Test cricket if he was assured that he would not have to tour in the winter. This guarantee was not forthcoming from the England selectors.
Trescothick is continuing to receive treatment to help him to overcome an illness that initially baffled him in India in 2006 and that has been viewed sympathetically by his fellow professionals.
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At first he thought this had been caused by physical and mental exhaustion brought on by a gruelling schedule of playing and travelling, coupled with missing his family. When he suffered from repeated shivers and sweating and broke down in front of Peter Gregory, then the England team doctor, he was aware it was something far more worrying.