In his first interview after his conviction in the drugs case, former Australian legspinner Stuart MacGill has said that he gets “very anxious” and has been struggling to get work and is worried about the mental impact on his kids.
‘”I don’t care what people are saying about me, but I do care what was happening to the kids and I know it has been very difficult for them,” MacGill told the Howie Games podcast.
MacGill had to serve a community sentence after being convicted for a cocaine deal. The 54-year-old McGill had been accused of facilitating a cocaine deal between his partner’s brother and a dealer. MacGill was the link for a $330,000 exchange for a kilogram of cocaine and had arranged for a meeting under his restaurant on Sydney’s north shore. However, the former Test leg-spinner had denied knowing that a deal would take place and admitted that he regularly purchased half a gram of cocaine for $200 from the dealer.
“I am very lucky because depression has never been a big thing for me. ’I get anxious. I won’t lie about that. I get very anxious. People talk about the half-full half-empty situation – well, I’ve always said I’m neither of them, I’m completely empty. And the reason I say that is because if today is the worst day of your life, tomorrow is going to be slightly fuller.”
MacGill, who took 208 from 44 Tests for Australia, said he is leaning on the skills learnt from playing cricket to try get his life back on track.
“If you hit rock bottom there is sunshine ahead,’ MacGill said. If anything particularly bothers me, I just don’t think about it. I learned that through playing Test cricket. If you have a bad day, don’t buy a paper. If you have a good day, buy every paper in the stand.”
He worries about the mental impact of the legal troubles on his children. “My kids have had to put up with it. I can just turn the media off but… it is very difficult for kids to turn social media off.”
MacGill also spoke about the difficulties in finding a regular job, though he has got some work as a cricket coach.
“I’m doing my coaching but other than that I’m not really working much which is a pain because I have a pretty active mind and trying to shut that off is hard work,’ he said. “Lots of TV. But I don’t mind my own company, which is a good thing. I get lonely sometimes, but I think that’s happened to a lot of people since Covid…My network used to be a big part of who I was. I knew a lot of people and I have closed that right down since I have needed to manage my own environment a little bit more carefully.”
