Former Nottinghamshire & England all-rounder Chris Lewis emphasised the importance of young cricketers planning for the future as he addressed a collection of first year professionals, including Matthew Carter, at Edgbaston yesterday.
The sixth annual Professional Cricketers’ Association Rookie Camp was attended by 19 young players from across the country, and Lewis used his experiences of being jailed for 13 years for smuggling liquid cocaine into England to get over a powerful message.
“It’s not the kind of story that you forget very easily,” he said.
“If it helps the young players here to think they need to plan otherwise they will end up like Chris Lewis then it’s job done.”
Lewis has committed to helping the PCA educate players about the importance for planning for life after cricket. His appearance at Rookie Camp was his first official cricket engagement since he was released from prison last June having served six years of his sentence.
“It has been a long time since I have been around cricket, a lot has happened since I last walked out of the door of a cricket ground, so I suppose I wasn’t sure about the reaction I would get,” he said.
“There was a little bit of apprehension about talking about the subject matter which is quite emotive for a lot of people.
“But I feel good about today. I hope the young guys got a little bit from it. I have spoken to one or two of them and it seems to be something that will perhaps stick in their memory.”
Players who attended PCA Rookie Camp were: Matt Critchley, Will Davis, Harry White, Rob Hemmings (Derbyshire), Jack Burnham, Adam Hickey (Durham), Aaron Beard (Essex), Hugh Bernard (Kent), Toby Lester (Lancashire), Rob Sayer (Leicestershire), Nathan Sowter (Middlesex), Saif Zaib , Ben Sanderson (Northamptonshire), Matt Carter (Nottinghamshire), Adam Hose (Somerset), Stuart Whittingham (Sussex), Alex Mellor (Warwickshire), Ben Twohig, Josh Tongue (Worcestershire).