Tino Best: 'I've given up the playboy lifestyle - I'm a reformed man'

An unseasonably cold snap has hit Southampton's Ageas Bowl, where Hampshire's second XI are playing Somerset.

The players are cowering for warmth. Snow even stopped play at one point.

Still, Tino Best is where he feels happiest: in whites, playing cricket.

Best will be 35 this summer, and has probably played the last of his 25 Tests for the West Indies, but the fire still rages.

When Hampshire offered him a short-term contract as injury cover, he leapt at the chance.

"I love to bowl fast," he purrs.

"It's the greatest feeling in the world. Bowling fast is greater than having sex."

"The thing about life is, everyone has dirt," he says.
"You can't live life wanting everyone to like you. I'm bold enough to talk about my past. I was raised by six women to always be honest."

"One of the most hurtful things is that my dad never watched me play for the West Indies," Best says.
"Or even Barbados. But he was nowhere to be found. He was probably hitting crack somewhere."

Does he ever wonder how things might have turned out if his father had been around? "I probably wouldn't have been as angry," he says.
"I'm still angry to this day. He preferred the crack pipe to us. So what are you going to do, as a kid?"

Tino's revelation should be a testament to fathers of the importance of their meaningful participation in their children's lives. Too often I have seen where children become bitter and even disruptive because of the disappointment of not having the presence of their fathers in a positive way. Therefore, I can understand the anger of Tino Best, and probably most of all from the disappointment of the lifestyle his father had adopted. It's good that Tino is seeming to get past the hurt from his father's action and I hope he will eventually be able to put it all behind him