Monty Panesar at a county game
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Where's Monty?

Trying to piece his game - and his life - back together, that's where

Vivek Chaudhary  |  

For somebody with 127,000 Twitter followers and who admits to being a prolific user of social media, Monty Panesar is being unusually shy. Attempts to arrange an interview are padded away. Close friends insist that he does not want to speak about "non-cricketing matters". A relative claims that "his parents have gone through enough and he does not want to drag up the past". The press officer at Essex asks for a list of questions and after receiving them becomes still more reluctant to return calls or emails.

Who can blame Panesar for being somewhat elusive? Other than being named in the top ten of the Turban List ("We hope to salute those who proudly wear their dastaar or turban and to endorse Sikh cultural sovereignty here in the UK"), he has not had that much to smile about.

The past year has found him out of the England team and into lurid tabloid stories: about his divorce, about efforts to lure a blonde American tourist into his room in Melbourne via a phone-dating app, about urinating upon doormen after being ejected from a Brighton nightclub. The last also became a viral video, excruciatingly embarrassing, as he can be heard pleading while being wrestled by a group of bouncers: "Please let me go, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." The outcome was a police fine of £90 - and a termination of his contract with Sussex.

So Panesar's reluctance to do a warts-and-all interview is understandable; some might even say sensible, a word not lately associated with him. It was a year that had revealed, to him as much as to others, just how far he had strayed from the path that had been set for him.

When Paramjit and Gursharan Panesar migrated from Ludhiana in 1975, they were joining the hordes leaving Punjab for Britain, home now to one of the largest populations of Sikhs outside India. They arrived in Luton, Bedfordshire, a blue-collar satellite town of London known at the time for its factories and Vauxhall's car plant, and where a number of Paramjit's cousins had already settled. Paramjit had worked for the family construction company in Ludhiana. In Luton, he found employment as a builder for a local firm. By the time the first of his three children, Mudhsuden Singh Panesar, was born in 1982, he had set up his own construction business.

Father would drive son to training and matches and reward his performances with vegetarian pizza treats. The trade-off was that the young Panesar was not to neglect his cultural and religious obligations

Paramjit played a pivotal role in encouraging his son's passion for the game. When Monty showed promise at cricket, he was removed from Bedford Modern School and admitted into the sports-specialist Stopsley High School. Father would drive son to training and matches and reward his performances with vegetarian pizza treats. The trade-off was that the young Panesar was not to neglect his cultural and religious obligations. He was to attend Punjabi language classes and religious services at the local gurdwara. "Monty once said that he didn't want to continue the Punjabi classes after school because they were tiring him out," one of Monty's cousins says. "His father got quite angry and said that he would refuse to drive him to cricket if he stopped attending."

The family belonged to the Nanaksar sect of Sikhism, which places great emphasis on austerity and abstention, and whose followers tie their turbans differently from other Sikhs, horizontally across the forehead. Panesar's maternal uncle, "Swamiji", one of the elders of the Nanaksar sangat (community), played a crucial role in family decisions. When he was a teenager, Panesar visited Swamiji at a Nanaksar farm near Edmonton in Canada for blessings to pursue a career in cricket. Panesar described it afterwards as the "defining moment in my life".

When he decided he wanted to marry Gursharan Rattan, Panesar again went to Swamiji for approval. The two married in 2010, at the Nanaksar gurdwara in Coventry, the most important one in the United Kingdom. The ceremony was attended by over 1000 guests. The couple moved into the family home in Luton, as Monty's parents had wanted.

While the breakdown of his marriage is not relevant to this article, Panesar's attempts to live in an extended family, as many British Indians do, tells us something about the strain of the East-West juggling act. In his case the tension was heightened. It is hard to locate the middle road between the life of a high-profile sports star with its hedonistic enticements, and the role of a son to humble, teetotal, vegetarian Indian immigrants who start each day by reciting prayers from the Guru Granth Sahib.

"Monty's parents have accepted that given his life in cricket, things will be different for him, such as the fact that he drinks alcohol," says a relative. "But the recent negative publicity has had a terrible impact on the family."

Manpreet Singh Badi, Sports Editor of Punjab Times, a widely read Punjabi-language newspaper in Britain, has closely followed Panesar's career. "When Monty went to Sussex I believe he lost touch with his community and his faith," he says. "He got caught between two worlds: the one he lives in and the one that he was raised in. Sussex is a very white, English, middle-class place, completely unlike where Monty grew up in Luton, and Northampton, where he previously played. It was very alien for him. He felt the pressure to fit in and be 'one of the lads'. Over the last two years he was hardly ever seen at any Nanaksar religious events, which was not the case in the first part of his career."

One of the lads: with Essex team-mates James Foster, David Masters, Reece Topley and Tymal Mills

One of the lads: with Essex team-mates James Foster, David Masters, Reece Topley and Tymal Mills © Getty Images

Since making a new start at Essex, Panesar was seen more frequently at the local Sikh temple near his parents' home and at the gurdwara in Coventry. As he began to regain the equilibrium, and form, that so publicly deserted him, he slipped again. He was disciplined mid-season, according to an Essex Cricket statement, "after breaching team rules for timekeeping". Other sources elaborated that Panesar had become distracted by his business interests - he has a share in a production company, investments in several other areas - and by the party scene, and the problems of his recent past were still not fully behind him.

At the end of Essex's Championship fixture against Leicestershire at Chelmsford in May, a rare satisfied grin broke out across Panesar's face. "I'm in a very good head space at the moment," he said. "I'm really enjoying my cricket and feeling very positive. Coming to Essex has been a very good move for me. I am focused on my cricket and committed to performing to the best of my ability. That is all I am concentrating on at the moment."

His determination not to be drawn into personal matters was matched by his effort on the field. He sent down 50 rhythmical, economical overs in Essex's only bowling innings and came away with a six-wicket haul. There was a measured intensity about him. Even his trademark wicket celebrations were tempered.

Watching from the stands was Neil Burns, a former first-class wicketkeeper who runs the London County Cricket Club. He describes the institution, founded by WG Grace in 1899 and revived a century later, as "part cricket club, part mentoring body to help players fulfil their potential and become more balanced individuals".

Panesar had first turned to Burns in 2008 when struggling with form. Following the urination incident and the ouster from Sussex, he once more looked to Burns. They meet twice a month for one-on-one conversations that can last up to three hours. Once a week they speak on the phone, and Burns watches him play as often as he can.

Panesar's arrival on the international stage in 2006, marked famously with the wicket of Sachin Tendulkar, was heralded as the start of a new era for English spin. But he became a cult figure for reasons beyond spin: Monty masks became a feature at Test matches around the country in tribute to his bumbling batting and fielding, and his clumsy, slapstick celebrations - high-fives that missed their targets. He turned into a quintessentially English mascot, almost Pythonesque (Henry Blofeld once referred to him, unintentionally, as Monty Python) in the way he galloped around the field like a fledgling foal, arms and legs manically pumping, throwing himself at balls that had passed him.

He got caught between two worlds: the one he lives in and the one that he was raised in

But as his performances slid and his life spiralled out of control, he turned into a more tragicomic figure. The numbers were telling. His first 19 Tests brought him 71 wickets at 28; the next 31 matches 96 wickets at 40. In the winter's Ashes he played two Tests and took 3 for 257. It meant that in two tours to Australia, Monty had played five and lost five, leading the Guardian's Barney Ronay to describe him as a "one-man whitewash".

"My work with Monty has been all about getting him to find greater clarity and balance in both his cricket and personal life," Burns said in May. "The most important thing for him to acknowledge is that he's putting his difficulties behind him. There's no doubt that he's had a lot of challenges recently. But he's now doing all the right things."

One of these "right things" was to embrace fitness training. At the end of the Ashes, Panesar stayed on in Australia to play grade cricket. He pursued a rigorous programme at Sydney University to increase strength and stamina. On returning to England, he began training twice a week with a martial-arts expert. He took up yoga.

"You are seeing a sharper, more focused Monty," Burns said. "What makes any spin bowler stand out is stamina and accuracy. The work he is doing will help maintain that quality of bowling and impact games."

After Panesar's timekeeping lapse, and the bland performances subsequently, Burns conceded that there was still "a lot of work to do".

"At this stage it is very much a work in progress," he told TCM at the end of June. "Monty had a great pre-season and got off to a good start. One of the key areas that I have been working on with him is consistency - both on and off the field. That is one area that has been affected by all the events that took place in his life."

The incident was a case of poor timing in more ways than one. In uncertain times for England spin, when a place in the Test team was his to claim, Panesar's future too remains uncertain. Over his eight-year career he has made two comebacks into the England side and is still determined to make a third. On this occasion, Panesar knows, there is much more to be gained than wickets and riches.

Vivek Chaudhary, former chief sports correspondent at the Guardian, is a freelance sportswriter based in London

 

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