Fabian Cowdrey has brought the Cowdrey line to an end at Kent by retiring, disillusioned, at 24, to support his brother’s singing career
Jack Wilson05-Apr-2017Fabian Cowdrey, the assumption went, was born to play professional cricket. His grandfather Colin was the first to play 100 Test matches, won a campaign for the spirit of cricket to be included in the Laws of the game, was awarded a knighthood, and finally became the first cricketer to be made a life peer for services to the game.To supplement the fame of Lord Cowdrey of Tonbridge, Fabian’s father Chris captained Kent and even led England once in the infamous year of five captains in 1988. Uncle Graham was a solid county pro who extended the Kent line yet further.Now at the age of 24, and less than four years after making his Kent debut, Fabian has had enough. He has retired from cricket – the game that made his family’s name – to help his reality-TV-star twin brother Julius become a global singing superstar.The Kent spectators turning up at Canterbury – where the Cowdrey Stand honours the family name – for the opening Championship match of the season against Gloucestershire on Friday will be in a state of mild disbelief when they hear Fabian tell that his love for the game has diminished.”My love for the game is gone, my heart’s not in it,” Fabian says, a week after his Kent contract was mutually terminated. “I remember looking out the school window and looking forward to the weekend so I could play cricket – not now. I’ve been waking up each morning without having the motivation or drive to get the best out of myself, and it’s not fair. I didn’t want to be around the squad if I wasn’t completely immersed in it.”Instead, he wants to devote his career to his brother Julius, who is in the limelight for different reasons, having become a star in , a BAFTA award-winning UK reality show centred upon the lives of affluent young people in West London.The show’s website proudly heralds Julius as “coming from cricket royalty”. He is a handy allrounder too, at club level and also as a singer-songwriter. The eyes are now on him – not Fabian.
“I’ll continue to play recreationally and maybe my love for the game will come back. But it’s the last thing on my mind”
“I was made up for him when he got the chance on ,” Fabian said. “It’s an interesting way to go and promote himself. He’d been offered to go on and to promote his music – but he turned them down. Then came around and it was a chance for Julius to promote himself as a person, as opposed to relying on Simon Cowell.”Sidelined at Kent due to injury for much of last season, Fabian filled the summer playing the role of Julius’ personal songwriter. The pair had worked together on tracks before, but with a reality-TV career thriving, Julius now had a leg up on his career path. And for Fabian, hitting the right notes off the pitch proved to be more fun than on it.”With cricket, it just wasn’t working. Success didn’t fill me with fulfillment, and things didn’t quite add up,” he said. “There were games at The Oval, where I did well, in front of packed houses, but the self-satisfaction wasn’t there.”I wrote the lyrics to Julius’ debut single, ‘7 Roads (I See You)’, which now has more than 500,000 plays on Spotify. I watch him perform and it’s fun. He’s on a UK tour now and he’s got a real hardcore set of fans who follow him wherever he goes – girls throwing jewellery at him once he’s finished. I enjoy watching him and I’m dead chuffed for him. He always wanted to become a singer. Now it’s more of a reality.”The Cowdrey name had been ever present as Fabian built his cricket career. In his final year at Tonbridge School, he broke his grandfather’s record for most runs in a school year. Like Colin, he went on to university (Colin at Oxford, Fabian at Cardiff) with the primary intention of playing cricket. Neither was awarded a degree. He once related the story that, at three years old, he had supposedly whispered to his mother that he wanted to play cricket for England.Instead, Fabian played 72 games for the county where his dad and grandad are legends, a practical if not outstanding cricketer who found a niche in the shorter forms. He took wickets at crucial times with his slingy left-arm spin, though his batting potential was never fulfilled. He scored bags of runs at second-team level but was often shunted up and down the order in the senior side, without ever making a spot his own.Fabian’s twin Julius, the beneficiary of his brother’s songwriting skills•Getty ImagesIt was his inability to hold down a spot in the County Championship team – he played just 12 matches – that hurt him most. Unhappiness started to creep in 18 months ago and he describes being “mentally cooked” at the end of 2015.Yet still he traipsed off to play club cricket in Australia. It was the country where Colin played his first and last of his 114 Tests. The country where, as a 22-year-old, he took a century off Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller that his tour-mate Tom Graveney hailed for its “unbridled genius”. The country where two decades later he bravely withstood barrages from Lillee and Thomson after an emergency summons to a final Ashes tour. There Fabian captained the former Australia Captain Michael Clarke for Western Suburbs, but by that point the pleasure had gone.”I went to Australia and played for the second year in a row and I shouldn’t have,” he reflected. “I should have recharged my batteries, as cricket had become too much. My love for the game had gone, my heart wasn’t in it. For a year and a half it’s not provided me with much fulfilment or happiness at all.”Now he has rediscovered passion, rediscovered drive. He has a new career, and a family name to make proud – away from the sport.”I write the songs for Jules and I love doing it, I always have,” he says. “Kent have given me five or six years of playing cricket and they’ve made my dream come true – but it’s time to move on.”In the press release about my retirement I refer to my ‘darkest moments’. One of them was not breaking into the Championship side full time. I’ll continue to play recreationally and maybe my love for the game will come back. But it’s the last thing on my mind.”