England\u2019s Ashes squad have been rocked by the shock death of former Test batsman Robin Smith just weeks after he addressed their Lions squad in Perth.<\/p>\n
News of Smith\u2019s death came only a week after Smith gave an interview claiming he had gone within minutes of losing his life after struggling with drinking.<\/p>\n
Perth based Smith was a regular visitor to the commentary area during the first Ashes Test.<\/p>\n
At one stage after retiring from cricket he drank a bottle of vodka a day for 12 years. <\/p>\n
Only last month Smith was called in by Lions coach Andrew Flintoff to talk about his battles with mental health for which he had become an advocate.<\/p>\n
The South African born 62-year-old played 62 Test matches before his international career finished in 1996.<\/p>\n
A powerful enforcer with a withering cut shot, Smith revealed the stresses triggered by the decline of his Test career saw his life disintegrate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m going to be really honest, yeah it did,\u2019\u2019 Smith said. \u201cJust seeing guys \u2013 who I loved \u2013 like John Crawley, Mark Ramprakash or Graeme Hick (take my place). Those guys were averaging 28, 29, 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cI speak a little bit now publicly about mental health and I was very, very, close twice, within two minutes of taking my life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I had spoken to my friends. I didn\u2019t want to burden them with my problems. But I should have reached out to them.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The high point of Smith\u2019s many duels with Australia was an against-the-flow 553 run at 61 series in 1989 in England when his team was being thrashed. He played in three Ashes series without tasting victory.<\/p>\n
During his vodka addiction Smith spent seven months in hospital with a major liver complaint.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cMy brother Chris and son Harrison were called in by doctors and told I had a five per cent chance of walking out.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s amazing that I\u2019m here talking to you.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrinking a bottle of vodka a day for 12 years obviously didn\u2019t do the liver much good.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I went on a strict diet, and I\u2019ve got to be really careful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England\u2019s Ashes squad have been rocked by the shock death of former Test batsman Robin Smith just weeks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[19526,64,63,689,16806,181907,1208,181903,95509,2057,181906,17418,181912,181913,181901,514,3583,677,46,181910,181908,181911,85,181904,181902,181905,181909,3439],"class_list":["post-323250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-andrew-flintoff","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-chris","tag-commentary-area","tag-england","tag-english-batsman","tag-english-cricket","tag-europe","tag-graeme-hock","tag-harrison","tag-john-crawley","tag-liver-complaint","tag-mark-ramprakash","tag-mental-health","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-perth","tag-regular-visitor","tag-robert-craddock","tag-robin-smith","tag-sports","tag-stokes-apologises","tag-sudden-passing","tag-tasting-victory","tag-vodka-addiction","tag-western-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}