‘I’m a lucky man’: Ryan Campbell on his ‘seven-day window of nothing’

“I thought I was in Bali, I’d been kidnapped, drugged and people had stolen all my stuff because I couldn’t find anything,” says Ryan Campbell. In reality, the former Australia wicketkeeper was in a Stoke hospitaland awake after a week spent in a coma.

On a family visit to England last April, Campbell had been playing with his two young childrenin a Cheshire playgroundwhen he suffered a cardiac arrest. Another parent present came to his aid before Campbell was treated at Royal Stoke University Hospital. For the recently turned 50-year-old, the events formed part of a “seven-day window of nothing”, his memory only going as far as getting on the flight he took from Schiphol airport to arrive in the country. His friends and family can remember, and it’s their experiences he reflects on.

“It’s horrific what they had to endure,” says Campbell. “I’ve read articles where my wife and a great friend of mine, Simon Millington, spoke about their time sitting by my bed and what they went through. That’s the moments where you go: ‘Jeez, I’m a lucky man.’” A near-death experience still offers space for a light touch. “I can’t confess that I’m a religious man, but I kind of thought someone was looking over my shoulder at some point. He obviously didn’t want to catch up with me upstairs because I never saw any lights or any white tunnels.”

Fortunately, even through a Zoom screen, Campbell is looking in good nick: healthy, smiling and happy to squeeze in a chat between all the other tasks that occupy him as Durham’s new head coach. It’s another country ticked off in a career that’s moved through multiple continents.

A swashbuckling keeper-batter for Western Australia at the turn of the century,Campbell won two Sheffield Shield