Away from cricket I found myself being demoralised by several things. The thing is that when I feel down, I feel REALLY down. It's when you feel like that things just seem to pile up but when you look back things probably weren't as bad as you thought at the time. Stress is something I've had to deal with for years, even more so since the end of 2008 and start of 2009 and it is since then that when I start to feel stressed I feel physically sick. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I went through that again and VERY unlike me I just couldn't face going to cricket training on Wednesday. I was emotionally exhausted by everything negative going on around me.
I have recently finished reading "Marcus Trescothick: Coming Back To Me" which documents the Somerset and former England batsman's troubles with depression, and the reason I felt it was such a good read is because I could identify with a lot of the things he talked about. The shiver, in particular. Depression is NOT a mental illness, it is a physical illness. It's when the brain produces a chemical imbalance that unfortunately leads to negative thoughts. When I get stressed, I get a shiver down my spine before beginning to feel physically sick and I have had that all week, and when there was no-one around I had reached a breaking point on Wednesday night and couldn't hold back the emotion. Perhaps if I'd have just sucked it up and gone to training I might have got rid of the negativity but I couldn't face it, I just couldn't bring myself to do anything that night. Unfortunately I seem to have carried that somehow into the weekend and perhaps that contributed today to my 3rd ball duck, an incident which got me angry.
One of the things in life that really bugs me is when people talk to me like I am an idiot, or are just plain rude. I am good with people and always have been but in recent years I don't seem to have the tolerance of rudeness I used to have, and when your job involves meeting and dealing with many different people you are bound to come across a few rude individuals. Thankfully the number of polite, funny and genuinely good customers we have outweighs the rude but it still kicks off that feeling of injustice that people get away with talking to me like that. Same with cricket. Cricket has taken me to the other side of the world on two occasions, playing in Sydney, Australia and of course I met hundreds of new friends and foes through the game. It was also during my second season at Macquarie University CC that I met my fiancée and she has a very positive effect on my life. I couldn't deal with a lot of the depression without her.
Australians play cricket hard and as an Englishman they'll make an extra effort to get in your ear. The number of English lads that go over to Australia to play is increasing all the time and with plenty heading in the opposite direction the trait of getting into the opposition's ears is now a part of the English game. It's actually a part of the game I enjoy and while sometimes people make themselves look like idiots there are a lot of humorous comments along the way. I don't mind sledging at all as long as it doesn't get too personal or of course, as long as there are no racial undertones. But the umpires? They have a duty to uphold a code of conduct and when they resort to words to try to back up their appalling decision making it's not fun to be on the end of.
This brings me nicely to Phil Matten. Now, this guy has a history of screwing up Bovey games and if there's a hint of rain, he has a bad reputation even with his fellow umpires, even though he is a senior umpire. I have to qualify this by saying that when speaking to the man one-on-one he isn't a bad bloke, I quite like him. But the sheer number of games he has ruined over the years is atrocious, especially the ones involving Bovey and even worse when you consider he has openly admitted to ruining the games in the past (Rain affected games v Paignton, Sidmouth and today at Exmouth spring to mind).
Today we were outplayed by Exmouth. When we bowled them out for 110, even though the pitch was doing plenty we thought we were a big chance to win. A couple of early wickets fell and we still felt we could win but it would take work. Trevor Anning bowled extremely well as you expect of a county standard player, with myself being his 5th victim with his final delivery. Now the decision itself probably won't go down as a shocker, it was probably the right decision. But Phil Matten gave at least three plumb lbw's NOT OUT when we bowled, but suddenly the marginal ones while we were batting were given out? That's inconsistant to put it mildly. I was disappointed with mine even though it was probably out. As I was walking off the square, Phil called out to me. This is how the conversation went:
Phil: What was wrong with that, then?
Me: I stand outside leg, Phil.
Phil: Just fuck off.
Now I hasten to add that I didn't start the conversation, which makes the "F*** off" even more infuriating, and I don't suppose for a second he'll mind that he's offended me. I'm certainly not one of the most vocal on the field (in England anyway!) when it comes to sledging and so, unlike other gobby players in the league, I don't receive as much verbal either. I learnt that early in my cricketing life. Remember what I said earlier about people being rude to me? I found it insulting as well as rude and it made me angry. Over the years I seem to have been an easy target for people to be rude to like this and it gets to me more than it should, I realise that. I got back to the changing room and there was that shiver... I felt sick, but this time with anger.
I had a shower and got changed and went back out to watch. I was on drinks duty at the halfway stage and as expected the Exmouth boys were friendly with me. No sledges or any untoward piss-taking comments. The umpires had started to come towards the drinks but Phil stopped on the square when he saw it was me carrying them. All that was going through my mind was to march up to him and tell him that if he EVER tells me to F*** off again I'll ram my bat down his throat. But what good would it have done?! I'd have probably been banned from Devon Cricket and with just 2 games left it would have been like using a pogo stick to cross a swamp; it would have got me nowhere. Also the notion of me being in any way intimidating is laughable to the rest of the human population. Also, given we were 50-9 at drinks I would have just looked like a sore loser. After the game I even had a chat with Trevor Anning and Richard Baggs and they agreed with my point of view (accepting that I was out but explaining my disappointment) and said that I should report Matten for his comments.
I know it's not professional cricket but when you have only 18 weeks out of 52 to play your sport you want to make the most of it, especially when you pay to play and especially when the umpires get paid to stand there and mess up. The bad ones have examples they should follow! By far and away the best umpire in the League is Dave Moseby, who has a great relationship with his fellow umpires and every player on the field, and extremely rarely makes anything other than the correct decision. There are other good umpires in the league such as Danny and Simon Dodwell, and there are other umpires who aren't so good, that's human nature and to be expected, there was one umpire in Sydney called Homer that seemed to think he could talk to any player on the field like he was a King and they were his minions. But no umpire in Devon is as rude as Phil was to me. As for reporting him? He'll only deny it and I'm not sure an apology ever really makes up for something that shouldn't happen in the first place.
Perhaps I should thank him... about 15 hours after I posted this blog I scored 100 not out in a Sunday game. Funny how you can turn a negative into a positive like that...
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