How desperation led Lewis to make a disastrous decision that helped him live DOWN to his critics’ expectations
REGRETS BUT NO BITTERNESS ABOUT ‘CRAZY’ JOURNEY FROM CRICKET STAR TO DRUG SMUGGLER
CHRIS LEWIS is annoyed with himself.
He was a talented, capable all-rounder who played 32 Test matches for England and in the 1992 World Cup final.
He won trophies during a domestic career that took him to Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Surrey before his pro’ days ended in 2008.
But it wasn’t a smooth, gilded career. Born in Guyana, viewed as an outsider, a difficult character, too flamboyant, too arrogant, too lazy, too talented, Lewis was constantly bucking against authority and tradition.
‘The prat without a hat’ was how he was described when he caught sunstroke after shaving his head in the Caribbean. He didn’t like the perception of him, but incidents like turning up late to the ground for England and then Leicester hardly helped.
And then came the big fall.
The arrest for attempting to smuggle cocaine into the UK from St. Lucia which landed him a 13-year jail term for which he served six and a half years until his release in 2015.
But there is something nagging away. The fact that he ended up fulfilling the low expectations people had of him still hurts, and will probably never leave him.
“There is a perception to start with and people pick out moments to fit in with that perception so that they can say, ‘I told you so’,” said Lewis.
“The hardest thing to deal with is that for most of my life I sat there and listened to people making judgements and talking about this and that and I used to think what on earth are these people talking about?
“Then you go and walk head first into the perception that people always had. Nightmare. Unbelievable nightmare.
“It was so poor. I was in a desperate state.
“When you’re in a desperate place poor choices are made and I have to live with this label now no-one wants.”
Lewis (right) was a supremely athletic cricketer who had real ability with both bat and ball.
And one wonders how life might have turned out were he 29 rather than 49 today.
There are tough times ahead. He would like a future in the game, but ‘only if the game wants me’. He is helping educate players with the Professional Cricketers’ Association and hopes to turn his story into a positive one. He has remorse and regret for the ‘crazy’ decision he made, but thankfully there is little bitterness about his cricket career which most players would bite your hand off to have. “I was having the time of my life in the Nineties,” he said. “I was one of the fortunate ones.
“We might not have had central contracts, but we had more in place than most.
“I had my time and where I have ended up is down to the choices I made and not the situation. I could have done so much better, but only with hindsight.
“It was still a great time and a great opportunity. It was wonderful.”