I’d like to take you on a short journey if you can spare five minutes. Over recent weeks I have been interviewing professional players who I have been fortunate enough to get to know and support with their “performance lifestyle”, but at the same time they have helped me.

It has been an education to listen to players as they describe their current performance lifestyle / career and their thoughts on their future lifestyle / career. So what follows are some brief insights, which I am sure players and everyone else within cricket can probably identify with.

These are the thoughts of players you play against, play with, or interact with every day! If you’re a player reading this and you have not met with an adviser in your region, I’m not going to tell you you should; experience tells me only you can decide that!

Mohammed Sheik:

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“I keep hearing that suicide is a big thing in cricket. I think it was a blessing that I got a contract at quite a late age, it meant that I got to see what was out there. I got to work in the big wide world before I became a cricketer, so I had a taste of what I have to go back to. It must be difficult for cricketers who got contracts at such a young age, when they finish playing after 20 years, at the age of 37 or whatever, and they have to go out there.

“They are basically lost souls, they’ve always been around the club, always had people around them, and all of a sudden they are on their own then, all of a sudden it finishes. I don’t see myself like that, I have had the experience of working long hours, and I’ll tell you it was bloody hard work, so I’m not going to be like them when it comes to me. I’m not going to get a benefit either so I need to know I can survive in the world without cricket.”

So “the big wide world” is out there. Well what about what players learn from the game, and learn from the environment they work in? Are any skills they learn transferable to other industries, and do players appreciate the skills they possess?

Gary Keedy:

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“As far as setting myself up for life beyond cricket, and I look back over my career and think what I have learnt, not just how to bowl and stuff, but without knowing it you have learnt key skills which organisations require, communication, being able to work as part of a team, you look at prerequisites of all these companies and they want all these key skills and we do it for a living without even knowing it, you know you are a leader.

“I mean communication, we all talk to the coach and listen to the coach, just basic skills like that which you are using every single day that you play and that’s something I have just got better at recognising as I have gone on in my career.”

In addition to the skills players have, do they have, (or more importantly know how to find) any contacts to use those skills?

Darren Bicknell:

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“It’s an important thing, that a lot of guys don’t do… spend a little bit of time getting to meet the people in and around you all the time, because I think ultimately they’re the people that you need down the line.

“I think once you play for England I think a lot of things just fall into place for you. It’s the guys that don’t play for England I think are the ones that have a much tougher life, you know, probably don’t actually earn as much… maybe just taking a bit of time out at the end of the day and talk to sponsors or talk to various people, rather than just being cocooned within the dressing room…it’s important to spend a bit of time trying to meet people, find out who’s involved with the club, who and what makes the club tick really because it’s people with business interests that are involved in the club.”

And lastly, what about a suggestion that having another interest, or another string to your bow, might actually benefit you as a performer? Nah, you’d be better off having some more throw downs wouldn’t you?!