By Mike Selvey/The Guardian


Monty Panesar is set to speak openly about the mental illness that threatened to destroy his career as part of a cathartic process that is hoped will aid the spin-bowler’s return to cricket and perhaps even lead to an England recall.
Alastair Cook’s side have struggled to replace Graeme Swann and Panesar, since the 2013-14 Ashes whitewash that saw both spinners play their last Tests, with the issue coming to a head during the recent 2-0 series defeat by Pakistan in the UAE as Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid
struggled either to contain or to penetrate.
With England set to tour Bangladesh and India next winter, a successful return for Panesar at first-class level in 2016 could be timely; on the previous tour of India, in 2012, the left-armer played a significant part in a memorable 2-1 series win, claiming 17 wickets in three Tests.
The 33-year-old made his England debut in Nagpur in 2006 and has taken 167 wickets in 50 Test matches, including 12 hauls of five wickets or more and two 10-wicket matches, placing him in the highest echelons of English spinners.
But he has wrestled with his illness in the past few years, his condition generally misunderstood by those who could only see the superficial outcomes.
 “For a long time I was in denial that I had a problem,” he told The Times. “It was in my first session with the hypnotherapist that I began to realise that something was wrong and that I needed help.
“The best way to describe it is that I have suffered from feelings of paranoia, and that these feelings were linked to my performances on the field. The worse things went, the lower my confidence went, the more paranoid I became. Things spiralled downhill so that I began to think my team-mates were all against me.”
Panesar recounted one occasion in which he stormed out of a gym session after being out-performed by James Foster, the club captain, and some of his younger team-mates. “I remember thinking that they were all out to get me and then when I calmed down I was, like, ‘These guys are my team-mates, why am I thinking like that?’”
Panesar’s obsessional nature impacted on his lifestyle on tour as well, where he would often retreat from his team-mates outside of matches. “I’d be in my room a lot, always thinking about cricket and bowling. I found I got on with most players, but I didn’t have any particularly close friends,” he said.
“Those that I spent most time with were often tied up with my job: the wicketkeepers I’d work with, my bowling partners.”
Neil Burns, the chief executive of the London County Cricket Club, a mentoring organisation said: “We have been discussing for a while the merits of him being frank about his problems.
“I have counselled him to be absolutely sure that this is what he wants. He has realised over the past year that he has required professional help. This he has sought and this now will be the first time that he has felt able to speak openly about his troubles.”
In 2009 he moved from his first county Northamptonshire to Sussex, where he played until 2013, with an embarrassing incident outside a Brighton nightclub seeing him part ways with the club. A switch to Essex followed but, after continuing to struggle off the field, he was not offered a renewal of his contract at the end of last season.
“Monty understands that people will be reluctant to trust him now unless he is able to let them know what has really been the underlying factor behind his erratic behaviour,” Burns said.  “He has made good progress with his treatment and has worked hard with having a more balanced, less stressful life.
“He is getting better at relationships with others and understands now how some of his behaviour has made things very difficult for team-mates when things have not been going his way. At the end of it he hopes that in speaking openly people will then understand why he has been as he has been and regard it with sympathy.”
It had been Panesar’s intention to pay his own way to the UAE to take part in the England Performance Programme there. But a shoulder problem precluded that and instead meant he underwent an operation in Manchester last Thursday. He will not be bowling again until the New Year. Instead he will go to South Africa, in the course of which he will help to set up a township coaching programme with Gary Kirsten.
Beyond that he hopes to be playing county cricket next year, preferably in Division One. However, he has no club and the scheduling of the county championship, with around one third of the games taking place before the end of May, means any potential employer might be reluctant to take on a spin bowler.
One solution could involve the England and Wales Cricket Board employing Panesar and then leasing him out in order for the player to find some first-team cricket. That would help not just the player but also the ECB which in its search for a Test match spinner may well realise it already has one.
To rehabilitate a fine cricketer, who has struggled to cope with mental illness and has found it difficult to be open about it, would represent a major achievement for the board.