success appeared a long way off as I struggled to come to terms with Dermot’s idea of turning me into an all-rounder. I could bowl all right, but only medium-pace semi-filth at best. Even though I had managed to take a hat-trick against Young Australia at Taunton the previous summer, and the first of the three was Adam Gilchrist, Wisden correctly described the move to employ me thus: ‘Trescothick, brought on in desperation to bowl his innocuous seamers …’, a view supported when you consider the identity of my other two Aussie rabbits, Jo Angel and Peter McIntyre.
As for my batting, even accounting for my 178 against Hampshire following the intervention of Brian Rose, I finished the season with 628 runs at 28.54 and at the start of ‘97 I couldn’t get going at all. I opened up with scores of 10, 1, 4, 16 and 4 in the championship, and was quietly taken out of the firing line to play for the seconds for the next six weeks, through June and the start of July.
For all the world it looked as though my decline might be terminal. I was 21 and a half now, the age when, if I’d had what it took, I should have been ready to kick on to the next level. The reality was that I was a second-team cricketer, still seemingly unable to correct a major technical flaw in my batting that had brought my progress to a grinding halt, and being encouraged instead to see myself as a ‘bits-and-pieces’ all-rounder, bowling medium-pacers and bashing it about a bit down the order.
It would take something pretty special to blow me out of the doldrums, to remind myself and everyone else that my talent was worth renewed attention and support – and then, in a four-day game against Warwickshire 2nd XI at the County Ground, it happened.
I’d taken four wickets in their first innings of 296, but when we were bowled out for 176, me for 21 by the Aussie-bred all-rounder Mike Edmond, their second innings 491 for six declared (Edmond 135) meant we were set a mere 612 to win in a day and a half. What made the idea of winning even more fanciful was that Andy Cottam, a batsman and left-arm spinner and the son of Bob Cottam, had had his right knuckle broken in our first innings and would be unable to hold a bat, let alone use it the second time round.
Even when we finished the third day on 241 for two, with me not out 91 and Mike Burns not out 50, everyone believed the final day would be all about surviving for the draw.
I don’t quite know what came over me, to be honest, but from the first ball of the next morning I just launched myself at the bowling. Whatever they bowled and wherever they bowled it, I smashed it.
After an hour or so, my stand of 154 for the third wicket with Burns ended, and it was about this time that someone noticed that there were only ten of us present. Unbeknown to all but a couple of us, Andy Cottam had headed off home to Seaton, about a 45-minute drive away, to drown his sorrows at the fact that he would probably be out for the rest of the season. It had never occurred to him, or anyone else, that he might actually be needed on the field.
Then, as the afternoon session progressed and I put on 144 for the fifth wicket with Luke Sutton, of which he made 34, somebody jokingly said ‘We’d better get Peter Anderson to go find Andy …’ and someone else, reading a scoreboard of around 480 for five said: ‘Christ, we better had, at that.’
So Anderson was duly dispatched to Seaton to try and track down Andy, tell him what was going on and get him back to the ground just in case. The club secretary had a shrewd idea Andy would be in the pub. His problem was, which one?
There were 16 pubs in Seaton, a popular holiday destination in North Somerset, and Anderson tried most of them. By the time we reached 500 he had looked for Andy in The Fountain Head Inn, The Ship Inn and The Dolphin Long Bar. By the time we scored 520, Anderson had scoured The Barrel of Beer, The Masons Arms, The Harbour Inn and the The Hook & Parrot. No sign of Andy either at The Gerrard Arms, The Kingfisher or The Eyre Court Hotel. Finally, with us now on 550 for five, Anderson found his man, somewhat the worse for a few pints, dragged him into his car and sped off back to Taunton.
Anderson’s foot never left the accelerator, while Andy Cottam spent the entire journey with his window open trying desperately to blow away a certain fuzziness.
Back at Taunton, Edmond was in full swing again, and three wickets in quick time left us seemingly stranded at 595 for nine. ‘Well tried, Banger,’ some of the Warwicks lads congratulated me, as we all prepared to walk off, before the sight of Andy Cottam making his way somewhat unsteadily towards us stopped everyone in their tracks.
‘I’m coming, Banger.’ he called out to me. ‘I’m coming out to bat.’
No one was quite sure if this was supposed to be some kind of gag. But Andy, his hand wrapped in bandages and hanging limply from his side, kept on coming, the match was still on and we needed 17 to win.
‘Right, Banger,’ Andy breathed all over me. ‘You get the runs and I’ll just run.’ And that is what we did, up to 604 with just eight to get, when I turned a ball from Edmond behind square on the leg-side and Andy called out ‘YEESSS …!!.’
The problem was Andy’s judgement was still somewhat impaired, so much so, in fact, that he hadn’t noticed the fielder coming round to try and restrict us to the single that would mean he must face the bowling.
‘Run two!’ I shouted as we crossed, knowing I had to protect Andy from the bowling at all costs. I nearly made it too, but a direct hit from Mike Powell beat me by a foot, run out for 322, my highest-ever score in any form of cricket, made from 417 balls, with 53 fours and three sixes.
As a result I was soon back in the 1st XI and the club decided to persevere with me for a couple more seasons at least, and set about finding ways to help me over the hurdles I kept bumping into.
It took another season at home and two winters away for me to finally crack it.
Their first idea was to send me to Australia to get fit and, playing for Melville in Perth alongside Andre Van Troost and Jason Kerr, I did, swimming in the sea, playing golf with my mates and good standard grade cricket against players like Justin Langer and Damien Martyn. The whole experience of fending for myself definitely helped me grow up fast, even though I suffered occasional moments of homesickness and realized I was missing Hayley a lot, especially as the house we all shared in Cottesloe was worse than my first lodgings in Taunton. The thought of sleeping under the stars might appeal to romantics but this was different. I was gazing up at the stars through the holes in my bedroom ceiling and any piece of food that wasn’t nailed down was pinched by rats the size of bears.
But I was determined to get through it and the regime instigated by a coach called Peter Wishart made sure we were kept busy. Up at 7 a.m. to do yoga and stretches, breakfast at 8 a.m., then either play or train in the morning, have lunch, train some more in the afternoon and finish off with a race against the great whites in the evening. The day we arrived in Perth we read reports of a shark attack so that kept you on your fins.
While I had some success with the bat, it was only when I returned to Perth the following year to work with Peter Carlstein, the world-renowned batting coach from South Africa whom English counties enlisted every winter to help out their young players, that I was finally able to make the breakthrough.
Peter took a thorough look at my game and confirmed what we already knew, that my strength outside off-stump was also my biggest weakness. The fact was when bowlers put the ball in that area, I never knew when to leave well alone and ended up chasing everything.
Of course, with the power and eye and timing I possessed, if it was my day I would still be able to score plenty. But when it wasn’t, or the ball deviated slightly off the seam I was dead in the water. For three years, any one of a number of seasoned county and sometimes Test bowlers would line up to
