Marcus Trescothick says he was “ready to move on” when deciding to call time after 27 years in cricket.
The 43-year-old bowed out from the game on Thursday as his county Somerset narrowly missed out on winning their first County Championship title.
Trescothick’s last act in a Somerset shirt was to come on as a substitute fielder in the closing overs.
“I’d moved myself on a bit earlier in the season,” he told BBC Test Match Special. “I was scared of it before.”
The left-hander announced his retirement in June, but admitted being uncertain at first with what he would do after playing.
“I’m ready,” he said. “Beforehand it was a case of worrying ‘what does it look like? Where do you go? How do you find the money to pay the mortgage?’
“These are the sorts of worries anyone goes through towards the end of a long career in an industry and it comes to an end and there’s no obvious thing to start.”
Trescothick, who was part of England’s coaching set-up during the Ashes Test series, has also done broadcasting work.
“I’m really busy for October, which is something I always plan for the end of each season, but it’s unclear how things will develop from there,” he said.
“But since last playing in a first-team game at Guildford in June, I’ve steadily moved into coaching and it’s taken its natural course from there.
“Should I fall into a full-time position, I’m just waiting to see how it will unfold.”
He featured in 76 Tests for England, playing a key role when they beat Australia to win the 2005 Ashes and scored 5,825 Test runs at an average of 43.79 between 2000 and 2006.
His Somerset first-class debut came in 1993 and his mother Lin revealed he was always focused on a career in cricket from a young age.
“He told his headmaster he had the offer of a contract from Somerset at 16 and he tried to tell Marcus to turn it down and come back and do his A Levels,” she told BBC Points West.
“But his attitude was, ‘I’ve only got one shot at this, I can do education at anytime’ and that was how he approached it from there.
“He left school one year on the Friday and we moved him down to Taunton and he hasn’t looked back from there.”
Somerset captain Tom Abell paid tribute to a team-mate and mentor after Trescothick led both teams off the field as the match at Taunton against Essex finished as a draw.
“No words can do justice for what Tres has done for this team and for Somerset cricket as a whole,” Abell told BBC Somerset.
“A phenomenal player but an even better person. It’s a void that I don’t think can be filled in the immediate future.
“But that’s a challenge for us as younger players to try and step up and emulate what he has done.”
