Mumbai maestro’s battle to bowl again
UDAL LIFTS LID ON PARKINSON’S ORDEAL
EVEN if it’s an absolute pie, Shaun Udal’s dream is just to bowl again.
While England’s cricketers resume their crusade to tame the Indian spinners’ bag of snakes, Udal will be wrestling with more humdrum chores such as brushing his teeth, legible handwriting and shirt buttons.
Diagnosed two years ago with Parkinson’s syndrome, the former England off-spinner was once part of a famous raiding party in India.
After waiting until 36 to make his Test debut, Udal signed off by taking 4-14 in Mumbai, including Sachin Tendulkar, in a famous win inspired by Freddie Flintoff leading a lunchtime singalong to Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire.
Sixteen years later, Udal’s mission is simply to feel the ball in his hand again – to confound the creeping enemy within – in club cricket.
Udal decided his shattering diagnosis was not the beginning of the end but the start of the battle. “To get Sachin in the bat-pad trap at short leg was just about the dream dismissal for an off-break bowler,” recalled Udal. “And to get MS Dhoni shortly afterwards was the icing, the cherry and the candle on the cake. It was fantastic to see the boys play so well last week. Brightened my day.”
Udal’s life turned dark after his retirement at the end of a 21-year career that yielded more than 800 first-class wickets.
Following surgery to damaged vertebrae in his neck Udal, right with old team-mate Matthew Hoggard, developed shaking in his right arm, discomfort down one side and slurred speech.
Weeks before his 50th birthday he blacked out at work – he is boss of Cotton Graphics clothing company in Basingstoke. “A staff member found me unconscious and in a mess, as you’d expect after falling down a dozen steps, and as part of my treatment I needed a brain scan,” he said. “That revealed evidence of Parkinson’s – but I only found out when they sent me a letter, which can’t be the right way to go about it.” Udal, 51, was devastated, but the cricket community rallied round. David Gower put him in touch with physio Sue Mills, whose treatment has improved his outlook. “The aim is to bowl again – the full 22 yards in a club match, not just in the back garden,” he said. “There are everyday aspects of life which can be a challenge, like shirt buttons, and my handwriting’s awful. I can get very low. “Opening a letter to say you’ve got Parkinson’s was a bolt from the blue, but the fight has only just started.”