Tymal Mills on a T20 existence: "You're living contract to contract, not knowing what the future holds"

NICK FRIEND: For Mills, given his own backstory – first of his childhood, then of a career nearly curtailed before its beginning, it is hard not to admire all he has accomplished

For Tymal Mills, the choice was straightforward: retire from the game of his life or explore a different cricketing universe. Either way, listen to a body that had promised so much but risked being left unfulfilled.

It was a decision that no 22-year-old expects to take; a congenital back condition that would rob England and Essex of a ferocious left-arm speedster and Mills himself of the career that his mind had grown up painting.

Where it has left the five-time international T20 cap is on a fascinating island of his own. Contracted to Sussex – a privilege for which Mills remains hugely grateful, but effectively a freelancer. He is a specialist on the T20 circuit.

His season on the south coast is a two-month affair; the first dates he seeks out are those of the Vitality Blast – his bread and butter, the punctuation of his year.

In a country obsessed with tradition, where professional contracts and first-class debuts remain the holy grail of aspiring dreamers, Mills is a unique precedent – an example of success in adversity; life beyond the status quo; a career carved out where, once upon a time, there would have been nothing left.

“It was difficult because the thought of retirement wasn’t great,” Mills reflects of the conundrum that faced a young man, then only recently beyond his teenage years.

“I’m not naïve to the fact that I was lucky in terms of how the circumstances fell. When I got injured, I was a better white-ball bowler than I was a red-ball bowler anyway. I found white-ball cricket easier and found that my skills were more transferable.”

There are those who, like Mills, found serious injuries but, unlike the fast bowler, had none of his express pace to fall back on to remain relevant or sought after.

Whispers of violent pace travel fast in a land where an insatiable desire exists to unearth quick bowlers. For a time, there was talk of fast-tracking Mills towards international honours. The theory around the initial hype was simple: thunderbolts have no substitute.

It all meant that when faced with his unenviable choice, there were suitors aplenty. Fast bowling is fast bowling – red ball or white, one day or five.

Competition is fierce, however. The circuit is a fickle world and only bulging further; Mills’ situation is somewhat different.

Where Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers and Shane Watson enter auctions - these human bidding wars - as bona fide superstars of their sport, Mills puts his name forward as a 26-year-old Englishman, doing all he can for his own cricketing livelihood in the face of a restrictive injury.

^{Mills' back issues only allow him to play T20 cricket}

“In the Pakistan Super League, I’ve played for three teams in the last three years,” he laughs. “You literally just go to whoever wants you.”

It is not a criticism of the system nor a lack of appreciation. In fact, it is quite the opposite. In a capricious environment, freelance life is a tough school.

“You are living contract to contract, not knowing what the future holds,” he acknowledges. While his situation is eased slightly by the solace of his home at Sussex, it remains a mentally challenging existence, devoid of continuity.

“You can be flavour of the month one winter, and then the next winter you can literally not pick up a contract. You can go from earning a lot of money one year to getting one of the lower contracts the next year. The memories are pretty short.

“I’m not this proven, seasoned veteran like Brendon McCullum or Chris Gayle. I found that I did really well with some of the contracts I got, but then as soon as you lose form, get injured or have a bad tournament, you don’t have that reputation or volume of work to fall back on that some others do.”

Exhibit A being the Indian Premier League – the prize cow of the T20 world. It is the destination to which all roads lead – unless, Mills reflects – your name falls off the list. As he says, it’s a fickle industry.

By his own admission, the IPL auction of 2017 was a life-changing moment for a man whose life, quite simply, had never seen this coming.

Raised in the Suffolk countryside by his mother, he grew up with no cricketing influence – he only took up the sport when he was 14. Training was two trains and a bus from home. Before school each day, he would sell fruit and veg at a local market stall.

It was not meant to lead to this, but a £1.4 million bid came in from Royal Challengers Bangalore. Huge money. Eye-watering figures for a cricketer in a six-week tournament, but a marker both of Mills’ talent and the resilience that had dragged him to this point.

A place among a star-studded line-up awaited him – Gayle, De Villiers, Watson, Virat Kohli. A who’s who of white-ball royalty.

Five games later, however, it was done. His hamstring had failed him.

“You get a bid like I got at the auction and you are expected to perform,” he looks back. He never played poorly for his franchise, but so much is about first impression in the short-termism of franchise cricket.

There is success and failure and no in between. It is a world without context, where injury helps nobody.

“I have not since been able to get a contract in the IPL. You do get labelled as a bust which, in terms of money paid to performances, you could say I was. But I did only play five games and I took five wickets at around eight an over.

“I didn’t do terribly but, in terms of what RCB paid out, I didn’t manage to return on that because of my hamstring. But I do look back on it as an amazing time in my life. It obviously set me up financially, which has been amazing for me having not come from any type of money.

“It has really helped me with my life moving forward. From a cricket point of view, I feel like I have got a lot of unfinished business. I still feel like I can perform at that level and it is where I spire to get back to.”

^{Mills represented Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL and last represented Hobart Hurricanes in the Big Bash}

When Mills talks of his time in India, he does so with a tremendous honesty. He holds no shame in discussing his fee and what it has done for his life.

There is no bitterness towards an experience unrivaled in the sporting world. Paraded through a volcano of cricketing obsession day after day, there can be nothing quite like it.

For Mills, given his own backstory – first of his childhood, then of a career nearly curtailed before its beginning, it is hard not to admire all he has accomplished.

He doubles up his on-field work with a growing broadcast portfolio; well-spoken and even better researched, he is already a fine pundit.

There is a perception of life as a professional athlete – the preconceived notion of sportspeople as mollycoddled, pampered, mercenary types. As the big bucks have swept into short-format cricket, that same fallacy has come to land on those who ride the T20 roadshow.

The misconception is one of money-driven globetrotters, disloyalty, a disconnect. Change is hard to swallow, and cricket deals with such innovation worse than most.

Mills, as he is at pains to stress, knows that fortune’s pendulum has swung on his side. Had his injury flared up five years earlier, he may never have seen a second crack at professional cricket.

“I’m very fortunate to do what I do,” he says. “When it is good, it’s great. When it’s not good, it can be pretty not good.

“You very rarely get multi-year deals on the T20 circuit in the winter. I have been very lucky with Sussex in that I’ve always had a stable base. I know I always have somewhere to go back to. It has given me a lot of security, knowing that I’ve got a space and got people looking out for me and somewhere to always go back to.

“For a lot of guys on the circuit, they have to source their own network in terms of physios and support. That’s nice for me. It is brilliant though; you get to travel around the world, you get to meet people from all different cultures and creeds, you learn all about different people from different parts of the world, and you get to play cricket."

That, for Mills, is the crux of it. If you view each of these worldwide franchise tournaments as individual entities, it is to miss the point of what Mills has grown to experience.

It can be a lonely place - it is life out of a hotel, often in chaotic parts of the world. It is an existence that has rendered him far better rounded; his career has taken him to Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, India and UAE for the Afghanistan Premier League.

The Caribbean Premier League clashes with the Blast, where his heart lies solely with Sussex. “I will never do anything to jeopardise my availability or loyalty to them,” he assures his county. “They have looked after me brilliantly.”

In a squad that features Jofra Archer, Luke Wright, Chris Jordan, Reece Topley, Phil Salt, David Wiese, Rashid Khan, Laurie Evans, Alex Carey and Danny Briggs alongside Mills, it is little wonder he is desperate to perform. It is a startling list of stars with global T20 experience. Finalists in last year’s tournament, they will want to go one better.

^{Mills made his England T20 debut in 2016}

It is also a group of players that exemplifies Mills’ final point. On a circuit as mean-spirited as the T20 sphere, where draft lists are swelling as an increasing number of players pull up a chair at the table for a piece of this ever-burgeoning pie, there can only be contracts for a select few.

In a day and age where everyone knows everything about everyone, attitude is as important as talent. While six-hitting is almost a given, just being decent company has never been so crucial.

“If you are a bad egg or a bad bloke, word does get around,” Mills explains. “If it is between you and a very similar type of player and word has got around that you’re not a great bloke or you’re a bit disruptive or you don’t give as much to the local guys, chances are they will go with someone else.

“For a lot of these tournaments, you are with a lot of these guys in hotels together for a month or five weeks. You spend a lot of time together – you have got to get along. Franchise cricket is a lot more than just the cricket.

“It’s how you interact with the team owners, it’s how they are with you, what they expect from you. Some team owners are very involved, while others aren’t. It’s how you go about how you are with the local guys.

“Mickey Arthur was very big with Ravi Bopara, myself and David Wiese when we were playing for Karachi Kings. He said: ‘I’m not fussed about what you guys do on the field. I know you’re going to try your best and work hard, but please try and help the young Pakistani guys who might not play any games but are going to go back to Pakistan after this and play first-class cricket and are going to take what they’ve learnt with them.’

“That was quite a big thing that I appreciated. You try and work with the bowlers. You go and you try and learn a little bit about Afghan culture or Bangladeshi culture.

"You go to the restaurants with some of the local guys, you try some of their food. It’s those little things that you wouldn’t really think of. But in terms of the team dynamic for those five weeks, it makes quite a big difference.”

This time next year, eight city-based teams will be cultivating their own environments as The Hundred touches down. It has been much-maligned, regularly criticised, routinely mocked.

Mills, however, is an oracle on this very subject; here is a man biologically limited to such tournaments. He is desperate to be there. England’s World T20 squad remains his ultimate ambition, but the ECB’s brainchild sits firmly in his mind.

“Every single county cricketer will want to play in that tournament next year,” he says with a sharp confidence. “There will be very few who don’t put their name in that draft. Your performances this year will help. There’s a lot riding on this year’s Blast.

“I fully expect that all of the big names on the T20 circuit will look to be involved.”

Having made the very best of his own misfortune, there are few better placed to cast their eye on the T20 cosmos than Mills, a seriously impressive man and an unprecedented cricketer.

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