Life after the baggy green isn't always plain sailing
Remember Gavin Robertson, the Australia offspinner who made his Test debut against India in Chennai in 1998, and then fell off the international circuit after a few months
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
Remember Gavin Robertson, the Australia offspinner who made his Test debut against India in Chennai in 1998, and then fell off the international circuit after a few months? In the Sydney Morning Herald, Daniel Lane narrates what happened to Robertson after his Australia and New South Wales career. Not all of it is pretty, but Robertson's story turns out okay.
Dropped from the national team and axed by NSW, off-spinner Gavin Robertson fell from being a respected athlete to a 31-year-old father who depended on social welfare payments to feed his family because he couldn't get a job - and it was humiliating.
He'd kill time by sitting alone on a park bench tormented by the void that appeared to be life after cricket. Robertson was frustrated to realise he'd invested so much energy into representing Australia in four Tests and 13 one-day internationals that he hadn't prepared for the day when his sporting career ended.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo