Trescothick empathises with Trott’s plight in ‘hostile’ Australia

Trott has endured an ongoing battle with the illness for some time and the England and Wales Cricket Board have announced he is to take a break from cricket for the foreseeable future.

Trescothick says he can sympathise with the 32-year-old, as he left the 2005-06 India tour and the 2006-07 Ashes tour of Australia due to a similar condition.

Former England opening batsman Trescothick said : “You just can’t take any more, you just can’t get through the day let alone go out there and play a Test match and win a Test match. I sympathise with Trotty.

“I’ve been in that exact situation in ‘06 and ‘07 and tried to make that decision knowing that the consequences and all the attention it’s going to bring on to you are going to be tough.

“I think we just need to allow a bit of time, that’s the key at this point.

“I know there’s going to be a massive media scrum over the next couple of days. We’ll probably see him flying back home and seeing him arrive back at his house, but we just need to allow him that bit of time to get well again because your health is far more important than any game of cricket that we play.

“I’ve been in this position and you try to cope, but it’s very, very tough.

“I’ve started tours sometimes, feeling not in the right place and not in the the right state of mind but managed to get through the little period that you can carry on playing and doing well – but clearly it has got too much.”

Trescothick believes the atmosphere Down Under during an Ashes series can bring an enormous amount of pressure.

He added: “This has got to be the biggest pressure that you can take on as an international cricketer, going to Australia with the pressure on for the Ashes and then being put under the scrutiny. It’s a very, very hostile environment in Australia when the whole of the country is battering you left, right and centre.

“The media, the people in the hotels and then you go out to the cricket and you get that as well, so it is not easy at all and I can sympathise with him because you want to give everything you can for your country to try and make it work and try to get through the problems, but sometimes these things are just too big.”

The Somerset batsman admitted the decision for Trott to talk about his problem would have been very tough, but he believes it was the correct one to make in the circumstances.

He added: “It would have been a horrible decision to make. When you’re in that state of mind you get very good at hiding these things but there comes a time where you have to talk about it.”

Australia captain Michael Clarke has been fined 20 per cent of his match fee for “using language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting” in the first Test against England in Brisbane, the International Cricket Council confirmed.

Clarke defended his sledging after the game, dismissing it as “banter”. He said: “Through my career, there has always been banter on the cricket field – and I cop as much as I give, that’s for sure,” he said.

Play on the fourth day of a rancorous first Test was heated, with Clarke warning England tailender James Anderson to “get ready for a broken f****** arm” as he prepared to face fast bowler Mitchell Johnson.