How cricket ruined my own marriage ... just like Thorpe

Jonathan Agnew13 April 2012

Graham Thorpe's decision to take a break from all cricket for the foreseeable future has divided opinion on the circuit. There are some who feel that the right way for the England batsman to deal with the harrowing and bitterly upsetting business of divorce is for him to immerse himself in playing the game.

Surrounded by his friends and colleagues, this is the quickest way - they argue - for Thorpe to put his problems behind him.

I heard the news as I was driving up the M1 following England's win over India at Lord's. I spent the rest of my journey home wishing I had been as strong as Thorpe, and capable of making such a bold decision when my own marriage collapsed exactly 10 years ago.

Like Thorpe, I had two young children, aged seven and five, but while there was no third party involved in the split, it was quickly evident that for me to have custody of my daughters - or even to form a relationship with them - was made impossible by my job.

What chance do you have when, be it playing Test cricket or commentating on it, you are away for months at a time each and every winter? This is not a moan - it is a wonderful life, but it has a price.

When I was lucky enough to tour India as a player for four months in 1984/85, there was no provision made for our wives to join us. Some did - at the players' expense - but for those with young children, it really was not a sensible idea. So they did not come.

The team left in October and returned in March: a typical winter for an international cricketer.

Nowadays, the England Cricket Board does help the cricketers meet the cost of flying their families out to wherever they may be, and there is a concerted effort to have more Christmases at home.

Throughout the Nineties when Thorpe, and others, were newly married and starting families, they were invariably thousands of miles apart during the festive season: something we all absolutely dread.

In those families that are already starting to show signs of strain, the long periods apart quickly cause resentment. Wives left at home to look after young children can, on a bad day, easily dream up a picture of their husbands living it up without a care in the world.

Absence is one thing but, with all those added pressures in the background, it was always heartbreaking saying goodbye when we were a family.

There was one occasion when I did not recognise my eldest, Jennifer, when I returned from one tour - but for many it has become even worse since because of the helplessness of it all.

Very few mothers, who possibly do not realise how lucky they are to have custody of the children after divorce, actively encourage a relationship with the absent father, and those that do so have my total respect.

In a situation where they don't, the chances are a relationship with the kids would prove increasingly difficult. This is inevitable since most parents who divorce would choose, if possible, never to see the other again and unless the father is there at the front door, week after week, doing his best, it is highly likely they will drift apart.

Although I do see my girls on an ad-hoc basis, that is what happened to me.

There is a part of me that wishes I had been brave enough to do what Thorpe has done. He is fortunate in that he has been highly paid for 10 years now, and can afford to take unpaid leave.

In 1992 - just one year into my job as BBC cricket correspondent - I could not, although my children continue to ask me why I did not resign and take a job that would have kept me in the country and allowed me to see them more often. I find that one especially hard to answer.

It was ambition, I suppose, and the opportunity to pursue a new career I already knew I loved. It had to be one or the other, and goodness knows what my alternative employment might have been.

If available, Thorpe would definitely have been a member of England's tour of Australia this winter.

It would probably have been his last crack at the Ashes: the ultimate cricketing contest, which, in five attempts, he has never won. But the odds are he will put his children first and decline his final chance.

As young Henry and Amelia Thorpe pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, they will not be feeling that they are the luckiest kids in the world right now.

In time, however, they will come to appreciate the sacrifice that their father has made.

Fight to win over the county set

After six years of trying to drive through reforms while being shackled to the combined weight of 18 counties and the MCC, MacLaurin has run out of steam. It is inevitable there should be growing unease on the county circuit to the changes that have been implemented.

Central contracts have taken the best English cricketers out of county cricket, making it less attractive. The coverage of county cricket in the media reflects this, with much greater emphasis on 'Team England', which has been MacLaurin's priority.

So far, only one candidate has emerged as MacLaurin's successor - Surrey's Mike Soper - but more will surely throw their caps into the ring.

I suggest that the winner will be the man who can convince the counties that they have a future.

But Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, wants more players to be centrally contracted and, with a growing dependence on dwindling television revenue, the counties will be looking for far more than simply empty promises.

Sad sign of the times at Lord's

Once, inexplicably, I was refused entry at the North Gate by a particularly savage steward and I had to give my report for the Today programme from a telephone box. Things have changed. I now approach via the East Gate where smiles are the order of the day.

How sad, then, that two incidents on one day have given people the opportunity to rekindle the less sympathetic and rather stereotypical anecdotes - such as the one above, I suppose - about a magnificent sporting arena that is trying to modernise itself. First, there was an alleged fracas involving an Indian television crew and a steward at the North Gate.

Then there was the extraordinary business of Alastair Dobson, an Australian spectator, strolling onto the ground from the pavilion to escort Sachin Tendulkar to the Long Room.

Security at that end of Lord's is not as strict as elsewhere: it's a bit tricky vaulting the pavilion fence while clutching onto a Zimmer frame. Besides, even the more agile MCC members know how to behave and do not invade the pitch. But I fear times will change for those spectators.

Thanks to Mr Dobson, they will be subjected to the same rigorous security procedures as everybody else: another sad, but inevitable step into the modern world for the MCC.

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