Ghost in the machine

Fitch-Holland said Vermeulen had been diagnosed with a "depressive illness which of course has a significant impact upon his behaviour. For anyone, let alone a professional sportsman, to publicly admit to such a struggle is, I suggest, exceptional and worthy of a degree of respect. We offer no excuses for Mark's unacceptable conduct but ask instead for some understanding."

It was under this heavy cloud that Vermeulen returned to Zimbabwe determined to resurrect his career. "When he came back and said to Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC), 'I want a contract and I want to play for Zimbabwe again', they quite rightly told him he had this thing hanging over his head in England, which was not ideal, and to go play league cricket and prove himself," Campbell explains. "But to fob off someone who's already unstable was just asking for trouble. There was absolutely no support base for a guy like him, there was no system to fall into. That was a recipe for a bomb going off, which is basically what happened.

"You'd think he might try and knock out the chief executive or something. But to do what he did - if, of course, he's guilty - you've got to realise there's a serious problem. Put yourself in his position: 'If I come back at least I can play cricket again. But now I can't do that. In fact, I've got nothing. Now what do I do?' It's a scary scenario."

Even players who did not face Vermeulen's personal challenges were shaken by their first cold blasts of reality, Campbell says. "Playing professional cricket is a pampered lifestyle. You're not really aware of the outside world, and when you're dropped into it it's a bit of a story. Teams these days have fitness coaches and dieticians and all sorts of things, but not enough of an effort is made to assess players' mental strength and aptitude to play at international level - what it takes out of you and what it creates inside you.

"Playing for Zimbabwe was never about making money, it was all about fun on the road and having a good time. Suddenly that's taken away from you, and you're not staying in nice hotels and you have to pay a few bills."

Presumably, Vermeulen had similar topics on his mind early in October when he apparently walked up to Robert Mugabe's front gate and demanded to see "the patron" to "talk about cricket". Zimbabwe president Mugabe is indeed the patron of cricket in the country. The walls surrounding his residence in Harare bristle with razor wire and men armed with bayonets, AK47s and notoriously short tempers. This time they didn't shoot, and Vermeulen was simply arrested. Upon his release, he went back at the gate and restated his demand. Somehow, he survived again.

In the days before the fire, the Zimbabwe squad played practice matches at the academy ground in preparation for their tour to Bangladesh. "He tried to stop one of the matches at the academy; he was throwing boundary boards and bricks onto the field," says Zimbabwe coach Kevin Curran.

A source claimed Vermeulen "went into the gym at the academy and poured whisky all over himself, and told people about what he was going to do". A fire was extinguished before it took hold in the ZC boardroom on October 30. The next night the academy building, a handsome two-storey thatched structure, was razed. Vermeulen was seen leaving the scene even as the flames leapt into the darkness.

He was arrested and charged with two counts of arson, and he appeared in court in Harare on November 3. He was granted bail of US$2000, but his passport was confiscated. Vermeulen's lawyer, David Dhumbura, said his client had been compelled to "make indications to the police without the presence of his defence team" - legalese for claiming a confession had been wrung out of him. The trial was set for December 6, but it was adjourned until February 7 because the police had not yet furnished the defence with a copy of video evidence in which Vermeulen had, again according to Dhumbura, "made indications" to the police.

Dhumbura might also consider the rest of the evidence in Vermeulen's dossier. While batting for Prince Edward School in 1996, Vermeulen was given out lbw. He was adamant that he had edged the ball onto his pad, and he made plain his displeasure by ripping the stumps out of the ground and locking himself in the dressing-room. There would seem to be more to this incident, because he was suspended from school, axed from the Mashonaland Schools team, and barred from playing for Old Hararians, which had an arrangement with Prince Edward to include boys from the school in its club sides. It took the intervention of Bill Flower, the immensely respected father of Andy and Grant, to earn Vermeulen a return to cricket the next year. In June 2003, Vermeulen was sent home from Zimbabwe's tour to England after he defied an ostensibly reasonable instruction that he travel on the team bus from Chester-le-Street to the squad's Durham hotel. "Mark has been warned about his conduct on a number of separate occasions during the tour but unfortunately has not heeded that advice," manager Babu Meman said at the time.

Vermeulen's bad mood might have been prompted by the fact that he had become just the 13th player in Test cricket to record a pair on the same day. But he couldn't have been too bleak earlier in the tour at Hove, when he scored 198 against Sussex and then refused to field a ball because "it's too cold".

Four months earlier during the World Cup Vermeulen's skull was fractured by a delivery from team-mate Travis Friend in the nets in Bloemfontein. Just 11 months after that calamity, Irfan Pathan smashed Vermeulen's skull again in a one-dayer in Brisbane. This time he emerged from three-and-a-half hours under anaesthetic with steel plates holding his head together. Another such injury, the doctors warned, could have serious consequences for Vermeulen's future well-being.

Vermeulen is not the only Zimbabwean cricketer who lives a troubled life. Another Test player, well respected and admired, has fallen victim to self-mutilation and slashes his arms with a razor blade. Still another player, who is easily counted among Zimbabwe's greatest, punishes himself for a poor stroke by refusing fluids and running long distances.

Sometimes cricket is not at all a funny old game ...