FORMER Worcestershire opening batsman Elliott Wilson had to retire from the sport after a disc in his back became infected with the flu virus.

More than a decade later and after countless operations, Wilson, now 39, can only sit for an hour at a time before having to lie down.

The discomfort is a legacy of the circumstances that ended Wilson’s promising county career after he was third in Worcestershire’s list of first-class run-scorers in 2000 with 779, including centuries against Middlesex and Nottinghamshire.

When he was 22, Wilson went overseas to play for a club during the English winter.

He claimed: “While I was overseas, I had an injection into a disc in my back and someone, who had the flu, coughed on the needle.

“I actually got flu in my disc.

“It turned pretty bad when it got into the bone, they had to cut out the infection, and I needed a double fusion.

“It really was unpleasant. I had four months in hospital that year lying down because my spine was infected.

“I was pretty ill and, sadly, that finished my cricket career which was disappointing.”

Wilson had made his first-team debut for Worcestershire in July 1998 against Northamptonshire in a tied game in the AXA League, scoring 15 and taking one catch.

He scored 61 opening the batting in a one-day match, against Sri Lanka and, two days later, was selected to make his first-class debut against Yorkshire.

In nine first-class matches in 1999, Wilson scored 536 runs at 35.73, including a career-best 116 against Middlesex and three further half-centuries.

In 2000, he was a regular selection for his county, playing 17 first-class games, and scoring two further centuries.

Wilson was unable to work for almost a decade after he retired from playing in 2003.

He put his time to good use by becoming a voracious reader of books and also developing his skills as an artist, he is still represented by a London gallery, and has had multiple solo shows.

“To start with I wasn’t very well for a significant amount of time,” he said.

“I had to have a lot of operations over a number of years so I really wasn’t in a fit enough state to even consider going into a work environment.

“The infected area had caused the nerves to become so sensitive that I had to rip pages out of a magazine to hold them, as even the weight of a magazine would cause inflammation,” Wilson said.

“It sounds odd but the only way I could move forward was mentally and so I ended up reading a ridiculously large amount of books.

“I set myself the challenge of reading for three hours a day and then got that up to four hours a day.

"I pretty much did that for a decade. I’m a pretty normal reader which is 40 pages an hour so, if you do the maths, that works out at around 1,000 books over a decade.

“So I did use that period to move forward. I really needed to achieve something and I did that through learning.

“I also did some art work in that time. I couldn’t do more than maybe a couple of hours of painting a day because holding my arm up affected the damaged nerves in my back.”

Wilson enjoyed his art but needed a regular income which is why he decided to become a financial advisor and sought help from the Professional Cricketers Association to help fund his training.

He is now working as an independent financial advisor from his base in Cambridge and an office in St Albans.

The PCA’s support, part of the Association’s educational funding for past and present players, has allowed Wilson to gain qualifications in corporate finance and financial advising.

“It helped me knowing that the qualification which costs thousands would be paid by the PCA,” he said.

“They really did make it possible. The drive to get the qualification or to do the reading was never going to be a problem, but financing it was, and the PCA stepped up to that challenge. I’m so grateful.”