Life is thicker than cricket!

By John Cheeran
When England opener Marcus Trescothick walked out of the Ashes tour Down Under what was cricket’s role in it?
Reports say the England batsman quit the tour in Sydney owing to recurrence of a stress-related illness.
Trescothick is an accomplished batsman. He is 30 and has played 76 Tests and scored 5,825 runs which illustrates his success as a cricketer.
The first signs of trouble began to appear when Trescothick walked out of England's tour of India this year because of stress illness.
The left-handed opener from Somerset also missed the recent Champions Trophy in
India because of lingering problems but was declared fit to tour Australia.
In the wake of Trescothick walkout, Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist has said the pressures of cricket could play tricks with the mind of players.
Gilchrist, however, said he had never reached a point in his career where he felt
like abandoning a tour, though the turbulent emotions were a challenge to deal with.
But the Aussie says a stable home environment has helped him deal with low points.
Many point their fingers at the pressure-cooker atmosphere of an Ashes series, of which Trescothick was expected to play a big role.
It is true that Trescothick was struggling for form on the current tour, scoring just two runs in the opening match against the Prime Minister's XI in Canberra on Friday, then eight against NSW.
Any batsman can struggle for runs and have a wretched time on the field. That should not put any cricketer under extra-ordinary stress, the kind Trescothick is suffering from.
Cricket, after all, is a low attention game in England.
If cricket was having a deleterious effect on cricketers, where will all Indian cricketers be?
Virender Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly would have committed suicide by this time.
The scrutiny and spotlight is so intense in India.
Indian cricketers must be either karmic yogis or must be treating everything as a Bollywood shooting.
Just think of the pressure Indian cricketers are subjected to, every time they play. It is natural since the rewards for playing for India are simply unlimited.
In that backdrop, to swallow the argument that cricket eats its own children is quite difficult.
Trescothick, however, needs our help, cricket’s help to rewire his life.
In fact cricket should have worked as an anti-dote to his angst.
Cricket should have offered Trescothick a parallel universe to him and it is surprising that he renunciated it.
But this episode should go a long way to show that, life, after all, is greater than cricket.