Warm-ups in Versace jeans

In the Age , Peter Hanlon writes that Chris Lewis' talent wasn't simply confined to the cricket field

25-Feb-2013

In the Age, Peter Hanlon writes that Chris Lewis' talent wasn't simply confined to the cricket field. In 1995, Lewis played for the Seddon Cricket Club in Melbourne, despite the fact that they couldn't afford to pay him, and the then club president Brian Rooney explains Lewis showed them a lavish partying lifestyle.

"On his way out here, he'd picked up a stewardess, lined up to see her when he got back to England," Rooney said. "By the time we got to the city, he'd taken a phone call from another girl, and I was driving him to a shop in South Yarra to meet another girl. I think you could say he was very popular with women."

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"We'd be doing park cricket warm-ups before the game, and he was wearing Versace jeans and a Versace T-shirt while everyone's got their whites on. It was a completely different environment for him," Rooney said. Foreign for Seddon, too. Grieves remembers girls no one had ever seen turning up at the cricket, "these stunning women driving BMWs, dropping off their business cards and asking to be introduced to Chris Lewis".

He talked to everyone, from the firsts down to the fourths, and was well liked. "After the game he'd buy everyone a drink, money wasn't an object," Rooney said. "He'd hang around for an hour, then he'd take off. He had his own life that he was well and truly living."

England

Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here