Triumph and despair

I signed for Surrey as a 17-year-old and was just delighted to be playing professional cricket - whether that was first or second XI. After all, I was following in my father's footsteps; like me, he opened the batting for Surrey. It wasn't until four or five years later that people began to talk of me as a potential England player.

When I finally got the call-up in 1997 for the Ashes series, it was almost a little late because I wasn't really in the best of form. That obviously doesn't help. It makes you begin to wonder whether you really can cut it at the highest level. I thought back to the experience of my dad, who played only one Test for England, which is ridiculous. Although I didn't do too badly during that first series, I never had a golden moment - the kind of moment that puts you at ease and makes you believe you are a permanent fixture in the side.

It was the same when we toured the West Indies in the following winter. I was moved around the order from three to six, which is somewhat disconcerting. But my form was such that I was in no position to dictate where I should bat.

In 1999, I was lucky enough to be asked to fill in for Nasser Hussain as captain against New Zealand. We were playing at Old Trafford and, while there are a certain set of conditions at that ground around which you have to base your approach, I never felt I was given the opportunity to stamp my mark on the team. I understood that I was only a fill-in option, but if you are going to have to take the flak when you lose then you want to have at least had your full say in the decision-making process. I never had that opportunity and for the next Test I was dropped completely from the side.

By the time we toured South Africa, in 1999-2000, I was actually one of the senior batsmen and naturally the pressure was on me to score runs. I just couldn't deliver. It didn't help that my private life was in disarray as my marriage [to the sister of Surrey and England team-mate Alec Stewart] fell apart. I love touring, but when things aren't going well for you or when your domestic life is in crisis, it can become a very trying experience. There is really no place to hide.

When I came back for the 2000 season in England I was at rock bottom. It wasn't just that I was out of the Test side, but that I had also become a fringe player for Surrey. I was going out and getting hammered every night. I was probably spending more time on my guitar and music than on my cricket, which is an indication of how badly my concentration had drifted.

It was at this point, with my world falling apart, that I began to think about quitting the game. When you have had a taste of Test success and you go back to playing county cricket - and I don't mean this in a disparaging way to my fellow professionals - it can be very deflating. Players in the Surrey dressing room around me were aware of what was going on at home and I'll never forget how Graham Thorpe consoled me one day for about an hour. I like to think that I repaid Thorpey when he was going through his own personal torment.

Although my cricketing problems were related to the troubles in my marriage, it did give me the chance to take a good, long hard look at myself as a batsman. I really wanted to be better, to look at my technique. Something had gone horribly wrong - I could barely hit a half-volley outside the off stump back then. So I called up dad. My parents had separated when I was young and with dad being away from home playing county cricket back then, he had never had much time to coach me when I was growing up. In fact, it probably helped that he had never previously looked at me from a coaching perspective. I let him dictate everything.

It worked. The next season I found myself back in the county side, hitting the ball a lot better and playing in a style that I had always wanted to. I wasn't in the 14 for the first Test against Australia, but injuries to Graham Thorpe, Mark Ramprakash and Michael Vaughan allowed me back into the England side. In my fourth Test back, in August 2001, I hit that match-winning 173 not out at Headingley.

A week before, I had carried my bat for a century for Surrey so I knew going into the game that I was in good form, but I could never have dreamt that I would play that well in a Test. Being settled at number three helped. That gave me a bit more time after fielding to sit down and think about my innings. A year later, I was awarded a central contract and nearly scored three successive centuries against Sri Lanka and India. I know it's a cliche, but that century against the Aussies was a turning-point. I finally felt like I belonged at Test level.

As a result of the trauma that I went through and my own difficulties, I think that I am now more acutely aware when one of my team-mates might be going through a bad patch. Obviously, form is the biggest giveaway that something is wrong, but there's a lot more to it - body language, psychology, whatever you want to call it.

I look at myself back then in 2000 and it makes me determined not to return to that. I have been very lucky. I've been given a second chance. So I am not going to waste it. I am aware that I have responsibilities to my children, myself and my team and I intend to fulfil them.

The life facts

Mark Butcher was born in Croydon in 1972. He made his debut for Surrey in 1991 and won his first Test cap six years later. He has played in 69 Tests, scoring 4,191 runs at an average of 34.92, but since returning to the side in 2001 he averages over 40. In 1996 he married Judy, the sister of team-mate Alec Stewart. They divorced in 2000. He is a keen singer-songwriter.

· Mark Butcher was speaking courtesy of npower, sponsors of England Test matches. For information on how you can get free membership of the England Supporters' Cricket Club, go to www.npower.co.uk/cricket.