Chris Lewis: ‘The impact I can make is by falling from grace and showing there’s a way back’

Exclusive interview: Former England cricketer on scapegoating, stereotyping, prison – and redemption

Former England cricketer Chris Lewis (AFP via Getty Images)

Chris Lewis was a keen observer of the first two Tests between England and India in Chennai, not only because he is aware of the effect that seeing cricket on free-to-air television can have.

“I remember as a young boy any sport that was on the TV, I would end up doing. It wasn’t just cricket but snooker, darts or literally whatever was on. It has a huge influence if you can actually see it”. 

Lewis’ interest was also piqued for personal reasons. Twenty-eight years ago, Chennai – or Madras as it was then known – was the scene of his first and only Test century. One hundred and seventeen runs comprising fifteen fours and two sixes smote in searing heat, with the hint of a hangover.

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“It was my birthday between innings, I got a duck in the first and I went out for a bit of a boogie, just on my own. I was never a drinker but I suppose I had a couple of drinks.” The following day he recalls feeling “a little light-headed” but with a slightly disinhibited mindset. “I remember thinking if [Anil Kumble] pitches it anywhere in my area then I’m going to go for it.” It worked. “It was my day in the sun and is pretty much imprinted in my mind.”

This anecdote could serve as a neat summation of Lewis’ playing days. Talented, mercurial, singular and occasionally frustrating. Michael Atherton, Lewis’ England captain during the early ‘90s, wrote in his 2001 autobiography: “Like many captains I fancied my chances of getting the best out of the enigmatic Lewis. And like every other captain I failed. In the end you can only lead a player to the well, you can’t drink the water for him.” 

I read this passage out to Lewis, he chuckles and recalls that he remembers this particular quote as he was told about it at the time by a complete stranger while he was in a nightclub. “Someone came up to me and said: ‘Athers has written in his book that he doesn’t think very much of you blah blah blah.’ It is an interesting one with Michael because I now know that a lot of the games I played and tours I went on with England were down to him. The quote probably summed up his experience of me and how he saw it.

Chris Lewis in action against India at Lords in 1996 (Getty Images)

“My experience would perhaps be a little bit different. Michael and I have spoken in the past few years, quite in-depth conversations and one thing that we realised is that we’d never really had a conversation until then. I don’t mean about life in general either, I also mean that we didn’t really ever have any long conversations about cricket. It was more ‘Morning skipper’ and not much more than that. You know, he was caught up with being England captain, dealing with the press and being an opening batsman.”

A culture at the time in which communication was sometimes lacking and issues of any nature were rarely talked about didn’t help. Lewis explains that it wasn’t an era of “putting an arm around the shoulder” and this could lead to difficulties with his captain and other teammates at the time. “I felt like we didn’t really know each other as people, and that goes for lots of players, too. I now know what Michael did for my career but not through him, through other people who have since told me. It was amazing when we did speak last year because it was like: ‘Oh wow, we should have done this at the time.’ It was a different era, people went about things differently. They would try the best that they knew and so would I but sometimes you just don’t get each other.”

This feeling of people not ‘getting him’ and of being separate from the crowd was a constant theme in Lewis’ playing days. The topless photoshoots, flash cars and hot and cold nature of his performances probably didn’t help but he alludes that a key reason he sometimes felt an outsider within English cricket was, simply put, skin deep. He has seen parallels in some of the recent conversations surrounding Moeen Ali and Jofra Archer.

“I remember when I was playing there were certain stereotypes that existed and you can still see some of them take hold with Jofra. The ease with which he appears to do everything, it doesn’t take long for that to then be interpreted as: “Oh, he isn’t properly trying.” I remember I would sometimes feel like I actively had to make it look like I was trying, by grimacing and making noises and so forth. Unless I was doing that, like the young white kids around me, then it looked like I wasn’t trying as much or giving it everything. If things didn’t go right [in a match] then the conversation tended to be about a lack of effort – that would be the general thing, that you got out of bed on the wrong side or whatever.

“It made me question, who do these people think I am that when I’m on the cricket field I wouldn’t try, that I’m not as competitive as others? That somehow I would just go on the field and if I wasn’t feeling it would just allow people to whack me around? The idea of it was just nuts to me.”

Moeen Ali’s admission last year that he was made to feel a scapegoat by some of England’s Test match failures is also familiar to Lewis. “Devon [Malcolm] and I, when we played together, more often than not we would go out the night before a Test match and have something to eat and wish each other the best because we understood that if something went wrong then we were the easy option. Unless we were performing it felt like there was definitely a bias against us and these things would crop up, emotionally that makes you very guarded.”

Lewis celebrates taking a wicket at the Oval (Getty Images)

Lewis is hopeful though that things are changing for the better and he is keen to state that Eoin Morgan and Joe Root’s sides seem to be more “open and accepting of different cultures, attitudes and personalities”. Nevertheless, the singling out of Jofra and Moeen, from both within the set-up and outside, suggest that some of the underlying stereotypes that affected him during his playing days still lurk and are occasionally revealed.  Lewis played 32 Test matches and 53 ODIs for England, he accepts that his record could have been better but looks back without regret. “I played cricket, something that I loved to do. It paid my bills, I met people and travelled the world with it.”

When talk turns to the current coronavirus lockdown we touch on the “dark times” that Lewis encountered after hanging up his boots. “Let’s just say that having to deal with other stuff after cricket has meant that perhaps I’m not as affected by the effects of the pandemic as others, because I have previous experience of being confined and it was under a lot more… strenuous circumstances.”  

Lewis has been candid and searingly honest in the past about his incarceration and it would be fair to say that we are both keen that this interview focusses on cricket. His drift away from the game under a cloud of suspicion surrounding his reporting of approaches of match-fixing contributed to his feelings of being an outsider and the gap left by cricket allowed other, more sinister forces into his life. “There are always choices in life and sometimes you aren’t even aware that you are making choices.”

In a 2017 Guardian interview, Lewis said he was upset that “having always fought against stereotypes, I walked into the worst one of the black man ending up in jail. But I put myself there. If you wanted to get deep, I’d say it’s the pain of disappointing a whole race. I’m 100 per cent sure every black person that knew me cringed when they heard about me in prison. The black community feels it’s judged as a whole because other people say: ‘See? We were right.’”

Before we part company, I’m keen to ask Lewis if he still feels this way a few more years down the line? “Most of what I said there I would agree with still. Maybe the bit about feeling a heavy weight of letting down the black community I’m more at peace with. I mean I walked headfirst into the stereotyping, drugs, jail – all of that world.  It was so disappointing on a personal level and so disappointing on a whole cultural level. You feel that you’ve added to a problem rather than diminished it. With time, I don’t take it as harshly as I did before.

“I take responsibility and I think that the impact I can make is by falling from grace and actually showing that there is a way back. So I hope, one day, to get rid of that stigma. But until then all you can do is keep moving, keep trying.”