The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers....

My cricket season started this year with the final day of Nottinghamshire Vs Somerset at Trent Bridge. It will be remembered for the regretable slog which saw Stuart Broad caught by Azhar and robbed me of my afternoon tea. Trent Bridge do a REALLY excellent lunch several times a year, on a weekend at Championship matches. It is served in the Derek Randall suite. For those unfamiliar, the staircase and corridor is bedecked with pictures of Notts players who have played for England from Captain Carr to Jake Ball. Each picture is accompanied by a little blurb on the player. Included amongst them is Alex Hales. His blurb if I remember correctly says something like 'Hales is an exciting limited overs player but has said that he still sets his sights on test cricket as his ultimate aim.' It left me feeling puzzled and a little sad. Either that was a bit of a fib or things changed rapidly over the past few years. You would guess that the IPL and the 'Bristol incident' has seen to that.

The difficulties faced by footballers who, at a relatively young age find themselves plucked from obscurity and earning enormous figures is a fairly familiar subject. For many the amount of money involved is a reason to discard compassion when someone's life turns into a car crash in the media. “Well, excuse me if I don't feel sorry for him, earning £100,000 a week!” Which of us, if we are honest though, can swear that, in the same position, our use of money would be admirable and virtuous and result in neither excess, addiction or scandal. It seems to me that with the advent of franchises paying the sums of money the IPL does cricket is likely to experience it's own share of messy, awkward scandals.

From a Bristol nightclub at two in the morning to failing drugs tests there is clearly a lot going on in the life of a young man who has lots of money and, by his own admission, at times poor decision making capabilities. He's also been in the news due to a reported messy relationship break-up. In short he is what the tabloids might describe as “troubled”. Some of the debate has centred on why he was described by the ECB as taking a break “for personal reasons” if he had been suspended for taking drugs. Maybe I just have a way with paradox but I don't see the two ideas as contradictory. Most of us have, in response to relationship difficulties, or other personal crises, done something dangerous, stupid, embarrassing, or all three.

He's thirty. It's an age where many will say he should know better. He should be placing a greater emphasis on achieving his best in his chosen career whilst he still has time. It's easy to see from this side of 40. Especially as someone who was married at 22 and by Hales's age had two children. I could outline a theory about how people are maturing 10 years later now than they did a few decades ago. Truthfully, though, I have no idea what it looks like from the other side. To have been shaped and moulded into a professional cricketer from a young age. To have played cricket at the highest level and been frustrated in your ambitions. To be given huge money to produce runs under pressure. To have, perhaps, become confused about what, or even who, is important. Somewhere in the disarray is a player who once set his sights on playing test cricket for England, and somewhere within that player is a boy who once picked up a bat, or a ball.

It's that thought which gets me – my own son at 4 holding a bat for the first time. Or now, at 7 doing his best to spin for glory. Because every cricketer was there once upon a time. Hales, I've always tended to assume was a particular kind of kid. I recently read an interview* which seemed to confirm it. That kid with too much energy and mischief, the kid who wants to bat... and wants to bowl... and wants to be the captain but doesn't really want to field, thanks very much. A good coach gives that kid a job, keeps them busy, keeps them engaged because no-one wants to see what happens when that kid gets bored. He responds surprisingly well to responsibility, but giving it to him feels dangerous. That child is still alive and kicking, in Hales as in all of us. Boredom and frustration have, I imagine, contributed to the poor decision making, and in turn poor decisions have led to his non-selection.

I don't want to tug the heartstrings too much. To many would-be-professionals he has already had a hell of a career. A career with a big highlights reel and fine opportunities. I think there is more though. Maybe rolling back to that unbearably bouncy kid can make some sense of the way forward. The wonderful thing about Tiggers, as you may know, is that they are unique.

*https://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/102074/a-cheshire-cat-in-crickets-carousel-the-hales-tale