Dustin Melton and a tortured soul

NICK HOWSON: Melton's story is not an easy one to tell, nor an easy one to read. But it needs to be told. Loss, tragedy, death and despair; this 26-year-old is challenging the idea of how much a person can absorb and still emerge from the other side

“I can't handle this anymore. I feel so incredibly sad. All I want to do is not be in pain anymore. I am breaking down because I feel like I'm not going to play another f*****g game of cricket in my life. I'm trying to stay strong; I'm trying to do whatever I can, I'm trying to stay positive.”

Dustin Melton sat in his car and poured out his heart into his smartphone. 

Everything had become too much. 

From being put up for adoption at three years old, dealing with the suicide of a young friend, struggling for food and warmth while bouncing from one failed county trial to another, having a brother in prison, a constant flow of injuries and then, last year, the murder of his biological mother, it is quite remarkable - in context - that his breakdown had not come earlier.

A frustrating career that had amounted to just 13 matches had finally taken its toll when Melton, no stranger to opening up, cracked. The pressures of filling an overseas slot at Derbyshire, guilt as part of a struggling team, and the constant feeling of injury disappointments finally boiled over.

Melton stormed out of practice in mid-July in tears after having another session ruined by a troublesome heel, went straight to his car and let his troubles run as a continuous, tortured train of thought.

“While I was going through that pain, I just felt like this game wasn't right for me,” he tells The Cricketer. “This must be happening for a reason. This is not the way it is supposed to be. I'm not destined for this anymore. I was on the knife-edge of giving up and not playing anymore.

”I was in a bad way. People around me were telling me I was not myself. I was having a lot of terrible thoughts about myself. Whether there was a purpose of me being around anymore.

“I've ruined so many nice relationships with people I've had over the years just to come and play a couple of first-class games, not be very successful or set the world alight like I planned and just become a failure really.

”I felt like I'd let everyone down around me, my family and friends who believed that I would be successful and amount to something. I felt I was quite worthless that I wasn't doing that or living up to the expectation they had of me, and I had of myself.

“I don't necessarily think it was suicidal, it was more emotional. I'd made sure I'd get myself help before I had any thoughts like that come across my mind.

”I've had people around me pass away due to losing love for themselves or not being able to handle circumstances in their life. I'd rather stay away from that because I know how much it hurt me to see them go and to protect the people around me so I'd always make sure I stop myself before it got like that. I don't think it was suicidal.“

Though it isn't a guaranteed way of understanding how Melton got to a place where he was considering his entire existence, it is important to trace back to how he got here.

Aged three, he moved from his native Zimbabwe to South Africa, having been offered for adoption. It is a period Melton describes as one of the most tranquil of his life. A ”privileged“ upbringing and a decent education helped him realise an aptitude for sport, and he soon realised he could throw long and sprint fast.

That said, his cricketing skills initially struggled to gain wider recognition. Provinces weren't convinced - ”I felt angry and upset as to the reasons why I wasn't getting into those sides“ - but by the time Northerns gave him a chance it came too late to force himself into the South Africa squad for the 2014 Under-19 World Cup in Dubai, which they won.

One prevailing and unfortunate trend throughout Melton's life is forward steps being counterbalanced by challenges and catastrophe.

Just as his cricket career looked like progressing, he suffered the blow of losing a school friend to suicide.

”He was always introverted, a little bit different but very talented and very cultural,“ Melton says.

^{Injuries have been a constant theme of Melton's career (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)}

”He played an instrument really well, he used to draw really well, he loved his heavy metal. And that set him aside from everyone else. He was always a little bit segregated.

“I don't know what was the reason that pushed him to tie a noose around his neck. 

”His high school life would have weighed him down a lot and I always wish he had spoken to me about it and had the courage to open up. I have to live with that and that I can't do anything about it.

“I have to do something now to prevent people from having these thoughts cross their mind and be pushed to a point where they have to take their life.”

Melton earned a bursary to enrol on the TuksSport cricket programme at the University of Pretoria and in 2015 he represented the team at the prestigious Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals held in India.

The team led by Aiden Markram and including Lungi Ngidi retained their title, beating a Loughborough University side including Warwickshire's Michael Burgess in the final. Melton took six wickets in five games and picked up 2 for 25 in that final.

University director of cricket, TuksCricket head coach and technical director Pierre de Bruyn, bound for Leicestershire that winter ahead of eventually being appointed head coach, offered to take Melton with him to pursue a professional career. He qualified for an ancestral visa via his grandmother and the next chapter of his career began, not that it initially went to plan.

“At first I thought I would sign a contract straight away, that I would blow everyone away with what I have and what I am capable of doing,” he says. “I was a naive 21-year-old with all the confidence in the world and a great deal of arrogance to back it up. The game found me out quite quickly.

”I had to bite the bullet and reassess where I was in my life. I was considering going back home.“

Melton is now working under Ajmal Shahzad at Derbyshire (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

Very quickly he lost contact with De Bruyn, unable to match his expectations, and was left to plough a lone furrow. Amid five summers at Sudbury CC in Suffolk, averaging 19.97 with the ball and 28.57 with the bat, he bounced from county trials at Leicestershire, Essex and Hampshire.

Injury was undermining his efforts. A procedure to remove a bone in the ankle of his lead foot was needed to alleviate a chronic issue. But counties, concerned about inconsistency of fitness, weren't biting. And physical issues weren't Melton's only concern.

”Financially I was in a terrible, terrible way,” he says.

“I just had a part-time job leading into a full-time job as a cook at Wetherspoons. 

”I remember one difficult week with no electricity and those prepaid meters that you had to deposit money onto, and no money. We could put dried food on the table. We had dark, horrible winter nights.

“The windows weren't double-glazed. There was a hell of a lot of cold air rushing through the cracks by the windows. It wasn't a fit place to live.

”I managed to move out, get myself a nicer place and in order to do that I ended up having to do 40–50-hour weeks on minimum wage, waking up at 5am, getting home at 4pm and not seeing the light of day.“

He shared the experience with his biological brother Jason. They had been separated as children and met for the first time when Dustin moved to England. Jason, based in Eastbourne and part of the Sussex system for a time, had served time in prison for several offences. It was the first connection Melton had with a family member.

”We spent two nights just speaking. We had a sleepless night the day he came and joined me. We got drunk together. We laughed together. We cried together. We spoke about our stories and all the things that we'd been through to get to where we were.

"I know for a fact there are many, many more who are going through the same. Same worries. Same stresses. Same pain. And we're fighting the same demons."

“We found it quite special that everything led to that moment no matter how difficult things got for us in our journey. It was almost meant to be, and we were going to be part of each other's lives from that moment.

”He was very suicidal, and I remember helping him through a lot of horrible situations. It is something that touched me quite early and get him to a place where he was coming to a normal way of life and away from the life he had come accustomed to.

“I wanted to make it my little life goal, but I realised I was sacrificing a lot in terms of the way I wanted to go in terms of my career and he was pulling me down. I know he felt the same way.”

The reunion ended “abruptly” - in Melton's words - as cricket remained the No.1 priority. And that level of commitment finally paid off.

With the help of a family friend, footage of what perhaps remains Melton's finest performance in England made it into the hands of former Zimbabwe captain Dave Houghton, who in 2018 returned to Derbyshire as head of cricket.

That display from June 2017 as part of a Premier Leagues XI against Essex in a pre-Blast warm-up saw him claim 2 for 26, getting rid of openers Varun Chopra and Dan Lawrence, and a superb catch to dismiss Ashar Zaidi.

It was enough to earn him a trial for the 2019 season, during which he played for the second XI four times, the last of which came against Worcestershire when again a troubled past and a high-pressure present caught up with him.

Melton ripped through the Worcestershire top four in a roaring five-over spell that went for just eight. But with the final delivery, he tore his side. 

“I remember knowing this was going to be the reason why I wasn't going to sign a contract and everything I'd done would be in vain,” he says.

Steve Kirby, now at Somerset, intervened to help Melton (Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)

“I remember walking into the changing room, my physio trying to come to speak to me and he had to leave because I was so angry, and I was so emotional.

”I remember throwing my kit bag around, punching walls, slamming doors. I was sweaty, hot, and bothered and I was angry to a point where my bowling coach [Steve Kirby] had to come in and ask me to calm down and take a deep breath. 

“He saw me in that state, and he just gave me a hug. 

”A couple of other coaches got in touch with me that evening telling me they were impressed with what they were seeing and not to worry about it and come back fitter and stronger.“

Sure enough, upon returning to fitness he made his first-class debut against Australia's Ashes team. Figures of 0 for 55 from 14 overs were underwhelming, but it was enough to convince Derbyshire he had the temperament at this level.

The following week, two days into a second XI clash with Middlesex, Melton was called into Houghton's office. He expected a rollicking for a loose performance of 4 for 54 from 18 overs. Instead, a contract was pushed across the desk.

”I burst into tears,” he remembers. “It was everything I've ever wanted. I remembered everything I'd endured and struggled with, tough winter nights and feeling it slip away. Everything went through my mind at that point and I broke down.

“It almost felt like this massive weight was taken off my shoulders. I wouldn't have to struggle financially. Having a stable income meant I could build a life.

”It had been a horribly difficult time. It taught me that through persistence you can get what you set your mind on. If you dream about it enough and you sacrifice it enough and you're prepared to give up enough then you're probably get what you want and desire. It is through sheer persistence.“

Other than providing Melton with the ankle surgery and rehab he'd long required, it opened up emotional support from the Professional Cricketers' Association. Their personal development and welfare programme kicked in and with the help of Derbyshire and Kirby - who had been so crucial - Melton finally received the assistance he badly needed.

”Steve was one of the people I went to first. Someone I felt I had a lot in common with, who understood me very well,” Melton says of Kirby’s influence.

“We walked around cricket fields and we tried a whole bunch of different things to try and eliminate emotion from the game because that was inevitably what was clouding and getting in the way of my performance.

”That was the first time that I made myself vulnerable to someone and he was there for me and helped me a lot. 

“It led me to the point where I am now. We set up sessions with therapists and they helped me through things that I have gone through in my past that I might have been carrying to this point. That is how I progressed.

”Derbyshire were always understanding about my situation to try and get myself into a better position for myself.

“They have been fantastic. They've always been a good support system for me.

”They've been a massive support system for me, and I owe a lot of credit to them for that. I wish I had made myself vulnerable to them earlier because would have got help.“

The taboo around internal struggles has been definitively punctured thanks to players speaking openly about their issues. Jonathan Trott, Marcus Trescothick and Michael Yardy have been followed by Glenn Maxwell, Sarah Taylor and Ben Stokes.

Melton's first-class debut came against Australia's Ashes squad - including Mitchell Starc (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

And Melton fully believes there are more.

”I put a lot of money on the fact that there are a lot of people struggling. I had one teammate come to me today and say 'thank you for the video, I was struggling last winter and I am going to search for that help now'.

“I've seen a direct impact. Making myself vulnerable in the way I have, and I know for a fact there are many, many more who are going through the same. Same worries. Same stresses. Same pain. And we're fighting the same demons.

”You're not alone. Stay true to yourself. Remember who you are. Remember how you started. It is a tough game; we all know that. But you've got teammates and support staff around you. You've got people who love you and will care for you. Just reach out and they will help.“

In 2021, though, Melton had to deal with a fresh personal test.

His relationship with his biological parents had been varied: he exchanged occasional messages with his mother, while calls with his father were rarer but more intense.

Never were they more intimate, however, than when he contacted both his dad and brother to break the news of the murder of his mum, Rene, on her farm in Harare last December.

”We did try and see each other but due to cricket I had to sacrifice those moments,“ Melton says.

”I had envisioned so many times in my life and I started thinking about it a lot later after she passed away and hearing about the tragedy.

Mickey Arthur's arrival at Derbyshire breathes new life into the club (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)

“Everyone who knew me and knew her said we were like two peas in a pod. We had similar characteristics, she was incredibly talented athletically and I got those genetics from her.

“I tend to be a bit abrasive, quite forthcoming and overwhelming and I know she was like that. She would stand down to nothing and neither would I.

”I just wanted to sit down and have that face-to-face contact and laugh about our similarities.

“I'm not going to have that, and I sacrificed those moments to not see her and meet her to play a bit of cricket. I need to make sure it is all worthwhile and make sure there is a reason behind it.”

If there was ever a year to do justice to the expectation that has dogged his entire sporting life, it would be 2022.

He will become English qualified this year, meaning he'll no longer occupy a coveted overseas player spot. Mercifully, he is fully fit and on course to feature in the season opener against Middlesex.

And after 2021 in which they won six of their 35 matches across the formats, Mickey Arthur's arrival as the replacement for Houghton brings with it a fresh wave of optimism at Derbyshire.

“There is a degree of optimism that comes again,” he said. “That comes with very new season that awaits you. The more experienced guys will tell you that slowly subsided as the season goes.

”People are looking at results on a pitch as a way of getting rid of a county.

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“There is a community, the county has been around since 1870 and it has been a massive part of England, as has the football side [Championship club Derby County, formed in 1884].

”At the moment both are coming under pressure [Derby County are currently in financial administration] and us as players do take it a little bit personally. We do feel a bit of pressure.

"We would like to rectify that and put the doubt right. We don't want people saying horrible things about us of course. It does bother us and hurt a lot.“

Yet, reality may yet bite. Melton once again starts a campaign with uncertainty surrounding the next.

A new deal, regardless of his change of circumstance, is not guaranteed. In an instant Melton could be right back to square one where he started six years ago, trawling the circuit in search of an opportunity, and not knowing where the next paycheque is coming from.

But this is a 26-year-old steeled for whatever the world has to throw at him. 

”I still have my down days where I find myself worrying, concerning a lot,” he says. 

“It has been a journey where a lot of self-discovery needed to happen, making sure I am being aware of my situation and my circumstances and making sure I will be okay.“