Lewis 'sorry' after release from jail

Former England allrounder Chris Lewis says he wants to help young cricketers learn from his traumatic mistakes after he was released from prison on Tuesday.

Lewis, who played 32 Tests for England in the early-mid 1990s, was jailed for 13 years in 2009 after he was found guilty of smuggling liquid cocaine from St Lucia into England.

The right-armer retired from first-class cricket in 2000 but made a return to T20 cricket with Surrey eight years later before his career was cut short by a hip injury.

Following his retirement at the turn of the century, Lewis coached in Slough and worked on a local council in Nottingham.

However, it was around this time poor decision making cost him dearly.

“I became afraid of what the future held and at that point the thinking actually went awry,” Lewis said in an interview with the The Profossional Cricketers’ Association upon his release.

“I thought about things and made choices that I shouldn’t have made and that were the wrong choices and that, in the end.

“I should say sorry for because they were the wrong choices, and I do say sorry for.”

Lewis was born in Guyana but moved to England at age 10 before making his test debut 12 years later against New Zealand at Edgbaston.

The 47-year-old captured 93 wickets and scored one century for England in Tests, and says a future in prison never crossed his mind.

Image Id: ~/media/275DE5A2921D42AEAB639EC73302308E

Chris Lewis takes David Boon's wicket in the '95 Ashes // Getty Images

“I have had six years in jail. Until recently I would still wake up and look around and think: ‘wow, you are in jail’ because that wasn’t part of the plan,” Lewis said.

“I never saw that coming. The thought of going to jail didn’t even occur to me because in most of my life I had never imagined doing anything that would actually get me in that situation.

“Spending all your life at liberty and all of a sudden you are not. Jail on a physical level generally speaking hasn’t been hard.

“Jail time for most is what you do with your mind.

“It is a really hard mental exercise to stop yourself from thinking negatively so it’s a constant mental battle trying to find positive cues on a daily basis because 24 hours a day you are a prisoner so essentially you are in your cell you are almost in a goldfish tank.”

Lewis will use his harrowing experience to help inform young cricketers of the perils the real world presents, starting by addressing first year county professionals at the 2016 PCA Rookie Camp.

“The PCA have been extremely supportive right from the beginning of this situation let’s say,” he said.

“They have been extremely helpful and certainly, going ahead, I would like to become a part of that whether it’s giving advice or whether it’s just tugging on the grey matter to find out what happened at this particular time.

“If any of that can help any young player going ahead I am in. I am in 100 per cent.”