In his first interview after his conviction in the drugs case, former Australian leg-spinner Stuart MacGill has said that he gets “very anxious” and has been struggling to get work and is worried about the mental impact on his kids.

‘”I don’t care what people are saying about me, but I do care what was happening to the kids, and I know it has been very difficult for them,” MacGill told the Howie Games podcast.

MacGill had to serve a community sentence after being convicted of a cocaine deal. The 54-year-old McGill had been accused of facilitating a cocaine deal between his partner’s brother and a dealer. MacGill was the link for a $330,000 exchange for a kilogram of cocaine and had arranged for a meeting under his restaurant on Sydney’s north shore. However, the former Test leg-spinner had denied knowing that a deal would take place and admitted that he regularly purchased half a gram of cocaine for $200 from the dealer.

“I am very lucky because depression has never been a big thing for me. I get anxious. I won’t lie about that. I get very anxious. People talk about the half-full, half-empty situation – well, I’ve always said I’m neither of them, I’m completely empty. And the reason I say that is because if today is the worst day of your life, tomorrow is going to be slightly fuller.” MacGill, who took 208 from 44 Tests for Australia, said he is leaning on the skills learnt from playing cricket to try to get his life back on track.

“If you hit rock bottom, there is sunshine ahead,’ MacGill said. If anything particularly bothers me, I just don’t think about it. I learned that through playing Test cricket. If you have a bad day, don’t buy a paper. If you have a good day, buy every paper in the stand.” He worries about the mental impact of the legal troubles on his children. “My kids have had to put up with it. I can just turn the media off, but… it is very difficult for kids to turn social media off.”